Xperi has acquired Vewd Software Holdings for $109 million through a mixture of cash and debt.
Vewd, which was created out of Opera TV in 2002 and rebranded in 2017, has offices in Norway, Sweden, Taiwan and Poland. In all over 450 million connected TV devices have shipped with Vewd smart TV solutions from customers that include Amazon, Commscope, Hisense, Nintendo, Sagemcom, Skyworth, Sony, Swisscom, TCL, TPV Phillips and Vestel. It also has interests in in-car entertainment and broadband devices.
Last December, the company entered Chapter 11 having agreed on a prepackaged reorganisation with its senior lenders involving a debt for equity exchange.
The acquisition establishes Xperi as a leading independent streaming media platform through its TiVo brand and the largest independent provider of smart TV middleware globally.
Furthermore, it gives Xperi access to an installed European footprint of approximately 15 million devices that can be enabled for monetisation, including activation of TiVo+, a free ad-supported TV service.
Commenting on the transaction, Jon Kirchner, CEO of Xperi, said: “Xperi’s TiVo product offerings, when integrated with Vewd’s suite of streaming platform solutions, will help accelerate and scale the deployment of TiVo OS for connected TVs and expand our video-over-broadband offerings.
“Vewd’s global reach and expertise in providing support to content owners, TV OEMs, and SoC partners as they deploy middleware and OS solutions across various devices is tremendously valuable and further paves the way for additional monetisation opportunities as we expand our global footprint of streaming devices.”.
Kircher added: “The acquisition of Vewd also strengthens the growth outlook of our product business as we prepare to separate our IP and product businesses this fall. We expect incremental revenue of $10 million in the second half of this year, followed by substantially higher revenue and a positive EBITDA contribution in 2023”.
Aneesh Rajaram, Vewd’s CEOM said: “We’re excited to join the Xperi family and look forward to combining the experience, skills and scale of both organisations to deliver new innovations for our clients. Together, we’re set to deliver more engaging experiences to the millions of viewers globally who enjoy TV shows, sports, and the movies they love through our platform”.
As part of the acquisition, Xperi will add approximately 275 team members. The Vewd management team will continue to lead the business and will be integrated into Xperi’s management structure.
