Samsung Electronics has acquired SmartThings, the startup that makes smart controllers and monitors for the home. Both companies did not disclose the deal amount, but a source told re/code that Samsung paid around $200 million to acquire SmartThings.
Alex Hawkinson, the CEO and founder of SmartThings, posted the following on the company’s blog:
SmartThings, Samsung, and the Open Platform
Friends,
Today is a big day for SmartThings. I’m excited to announce that SmartThings has been acquired by Samsung and will operate as an independent company within Samsung’s Open Innovation Center group.
It has always been our goal to create a totally open smart home platform that brings together third-party developers, device makers, and consumers. We’re thrilled that Samsung fully supports this vision.
We will continue to run SmartThings the way we always have: by embracing our community of customers, developers, and device makers and championing the creation of the leading open platform for the smart home. Our growing team will remain fully intact and will relocate to a new headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. In short: SmartThings will remain SmartThings.
We believe that there is an enormous opportunity to leverage Samsung’s global scale to help us realize our long-term vision. While we will remain operationally independent, joining forces with Samsung will enable us to support all of the leading smartphone vendors, devices, and applications; expand our base of developers and enhance the tools and programs that they rely on; and help many more people around the world easily control and monitor their homes using SmartThings.
We’re tremendously excited about the possibilities ahead, and owe a heartfelt thank you to the people who have helped us get here: our amazing customers and supporters. To all of our earliest Kickstarter backers who believed in our vision; to our incredible investors and advisors, to our partners who have helped us spread the word, to our community of developers whose contributions continue to propel the open platform, to our all of our customers whose feedback, encouragement, and stories have driven us; and to our wonderful and growing team whose tireless work has helped propel us to where we are today: We cannot thank you enough.
Onward!
– Alex
This move by Samsung Electronics is all about the Internet of things and the smart home landscape. Recall that Facebook Inc acquired Oculus VR Inc for $2 billion. The two year old company makes virtual-reality glasses for gaming and Google Inc acquired Nest for $3.2 billion.
I think we will see more acquisition of the like in the near future. Apple Inc is said to be developing smart home products that will work with its HomeKit software. We should see others also join the race in the smart home arena don’t forget about Cisco’s heavy involvement in the Internet of things as well.
Image credit: SmartThings
