Xperi acquires Vewd in US$100 million-plus deal 

TiVo parent company Xperi has announced the acquisition of Oslo-based Vewd in a deal worth US$109 million.

The acquisition, paid for through a mixture of cash and debt, will see Xperi integrate the  OTT solutions provider into the TiVo brand umbrella. 

Xperi said that Vewd’s management structure will stay in place, as will the company’s 275 employees. 

Vewd provides OTT and hybrid TV solutions to more than 30 million CTV devices annually, including 15 million devices in Europe which Xperi said will see the integration of FAST service TiVo+. In total, over 450 million connected TV devices have shipped with Vewd smart TV solutions with customers including Amazon, Commscope, Hisense, Nintendo, Sagemcom, Skyworth, Sony, Swisscom, TCL, TPV Phillips and Vestel.

Jon Kirchner, chief executive officer 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 monetization opportunities as we expand our global footprint of streaming devices.

“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,” the CEO added.

Vewd CEO Aneesh Rajaram, who will continue to oversee the business, 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.”