TiVo has acquired MobiTV for $18.5 million.
TiVo’s offer beat a joint bid from Amino Amino Technologies and Roku.
Bankrupt MobiTV had been a competitor to TiVo in offering IPTV solutions to cable providers, with some large
clients such as T-Mobile and Cable One, but mostly smaller clients such as the National Cable TV Cooperative.
"The MobiTV solution provides an attractive extension of TiVo’s IPTV pay-TV
service offerings by adding managed services with the ability to reduce deployment time and onboarding costs,” TiVo parent Xperi said in a statement. “MobiTV will help increase
TiVo’s IPTV penetration with U.S. pay-TV operators, enabling them to rapidly launch a branded, fully featured, app-based pay-TV service. The acquisition includes MobiTV’s patent
portfolio, which is highly complementary to Xperi’s existing media patent portfolio."
The acquisition of MobiTV’s managed-service assets “immediately expands our capabilities
and the addressable market for our IPTV solutions, helping to secure TiVo’s position as a leading provider of pay-TV solutions,” added Xperi CEO Jon Kirchner. The acquisition will
help accelerate the company’s growth in the IPTV market by expanding its subscriber footprint, he added.
Assuming approval of the acquisition by the court overseeing MobiTV’s
Chapter 11 restructuring, the deal should close next month, Xperi said.