Microsoft buys London artificial intelligence firm SwiftKey for $250 million

The British firm behind smartphone keyboards and Stephen Hawking's communication system has been snapped up by Miscrosoft for $250 million (£173.3 million).

SwiftKey uses artificial intelligence to power its products, including the predictive keyboards on millions of smartphones.

It estimates users have saved nearly 10 trillion keystrokes, across 100 languages saving more than 100,000 years in combined typing time.

Microsoft’s Harry Shum, executive vice president technology and research said: “Those are impressive results for an app that launched initially on Android in 2010 and arrived on iOS less than two years ago.”

The swoop comes eight years after the start-up was founded by Jon Reynolds and Ben Medlock who met outside a church one Sunday, when they were both studying at Cambridge university.

The Financial Times reported that the entrepreneurs will both make upwards of $30 million from the buy out.

They said of the deal: "Our mission is to enhance interaction between people and technology. We think these are a perfect match, and we believe joining Microsoft is the right next stage in our journey."