Boxee Acquired by Samsung for $30 Million - The UpStream

Boxee Acquired by Samsung for $30 Million

posted Sunday Jul 7, 2013 by Nicholas DiMeo

Boxee Acquired by Samsung for $30 Million

The lesser known of the popular Internet-streaming devices, startup media company Boxee, has been acquired by Samsung for $30 million. If you are unfamiliar, think Roku but with a lot less of a push from media providers to get content on their platform. A quick glance at Boxee's website led us to this statement:

We're pleased to announce that the Boxee team will be joining Samsung.

We started on this journey six years ago, and have been at the forefront of the changing TV and video landscape. We believe that over the next few years the video market will change even more than it has in the past few decades.

Joining Samsung means we will be able to work on products that marry the best hardware and software in the TV space, products that will be used by tens of millions of people and will help to shape the future of TV.

We are excited about the next chapter for our team.

For Boxee users, we're working behind the scenes to ensure there's minimal impact to your devices. However, the beta Cloud DVR functionality we provided to certain Boxee TV users will be discontinued on July 10th. You will not have access to your existing recordings after that date. We realize many of you loved the service, and we're sorry it won't be available moving forward.

We're incredibly proud of what we've built, and we want to thank you for being a part of our journey.

For Samsung, this will help the company boost the software and user interface for their net-connected TVs. At the International Consumer Electronics Show, Boxee has shown off some impressive software but simply never had the backing to get themselves off the ground like Roku has. Samsung acquisition will allow the Boxee staff to really work on something big and provide a great experience across all Samsung devices as a whole.

Initially, Boxee was looking for approximately another $25 million in the round of funding they started up. Then, with the funding not coming in, the company started to shop around looking for a potential buyer for the company. At $30 million from Samsung, I'd say the purchase was successful and beneficial on both sides. At that pricepoint, Samsung will be keeping about 40 Boxee employees, with half of those working from Israel and the other half coming out of the office in New York City.

Where does this all leave Boxee customers? Well, on July 10th Boxee will be discontinuing their Cloud DVR service, and customers will lose all programming they've stored on the cloud. No word yet on the remainder of the transition of the company, as the news just broke over the weekend, however we'll be sure to keep you updates as everything unfolds.

Advertisement

Login to CommentWhat You're Saying

Be the first to comment!

We're live now - Join us!
PLUGHITZ Keyz

Email

Password

Forgot password? Recover here.
Not a member? Register now.
Blog Meets Brand Stats