Lexmark has upped its bid for enterprise capture specialist ReadSoft, to counter a competitive offer that emerged on June 18 from ECM vendor Hyland Software.

ReadSoft reported $US117M in annual revenue in 2013, and the new bid from Lexmark is valued at roughly $US194 million. Lexmark is seeking to extend the growing portfolio of solutions for managing unstructured data in its Perceptive Software business.

In its original agreement with Lexmark, ReadSoft agreed not to entertain any offers that were less than 7% above its bid. Hyland made its offer this week at exactly 7% above Lexmark’s original offer, which Lexmark countered the following day with a 7.4%.

Lexmark is also seeking to leverage the Swedish software company’s reach into enterprise and government markets in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, also attractive to Hyland which is strongest in its home market of the US, in particular the health and insurance verticals.

ReadSoft has recommended its shareholders accept the counter-offer from Lexmark and they have until July 14 to do so, unless Hyland or another party emerges with another offer.