Samsung buys Israeli Web TV startup Boxee for $30 m.
Tel Aviv firm connects computers to TVs to enable video streaming
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Samsung acquired the Israeli streaming media startup Boxee for $30 million.
The Israeli high-tech website TheMarker reported the acquisition by the Korean electronics giant on Wednesday. The report said Samsung will continue to employ Boxee’s 40 employees.
Boxee, based in Tel Aviv, offers a device that connects to televisions and allows streaming videos from the Internet and personal computers. It also offers media applications and social media connectivity.
It was recently reported that Boxee was seeking buyers or additional funding to the $30 million it has raised since its establishment in 2007.
Last month, in the biggest ever App sale, Google purchased Israeli online mapping service Waze for a reported $1.1 billion. For Google, the deal kept a potentially valuable tool away from its rivals, while gaining technology that could improve the accuracy and usefulness of its own popular navigation system.
The acquisition ended several months of speculation involving Waze, the Ra’anana-based crowdsourced driving and navigation app, which has more than 50 million users worldwide. The company flirted with suitors interested in its rapidly growing service, which blends elements of a social network into its maps to produce more precise directions and more reliable information about traffic conditions.
The Times of Israel Community.