Language Weaver, a private Los Angeles translation software developer that originated at the University of Southern California in 2002, is being acquired by a United Kingdom company for $42.5 million cash, the companies announced Thursday.

SDL, a global information management company based in Maidenhead, near London, said it signed an agreement with the venture-funded Language Weaver. The deal, which has been approved by more than 85 percent of the company’s equity ownership, is expected to close July 28.

SDL plans to use Language Weaver’s statistical machine translation software to offer clients better translation of its Internet content into a reader’s desired language. “We believe machine translation will become an integral part of companies’ content creation and management strategy,” SDL Chief Executive Mark Lancaster said in a statement.

Language Weaver’s technology initially was developed at USC’s Information Sciences Institute. The start-up, which has 96 employees and also operates in Europe and Japan, has received funding from Athenaeum Fund, In-Q-Tel, Palisades Ventures, Sulphur Creek Ventures, and the Tech Coast Angels.

Founders Daniel Marcu and Kevin Knight, as well as Chief Executive Mark Tapling, are expected to stay with the company as part of the deal.

“While Google Translate has set the standard for ad-hoc translations by consumers, we have found that most enterprises want to own their automated translation technology,” Tapling said in a statement. “When using Language Weaver, your content remains secure and confidential; it follows a workflow for translation and easily integrates into your other systems.”

Language Weaver said it had annual revenues of $12.2 million in 2009, with a net loss of $1 million.