US smartphone startup Nextbit sells assets to Razer

Smartphone startup Nextbit has stopped selling its products and sold its assets to PC accessories maker Razer.

The deal was completed last Friday, but the specific terms of the deal were not disclosed. Nextbit CEO Tom Moss told the media that all 30 employees of the company will be merged into Razer to form a new department to develop future mobile products.

Nextbit itself has stopped selling the Robin phone and sold out its last batch of products in January, but some are still available on Amazon.

As for consumers who buy the Robin phone, Moss said Razer has agreed to provide hardware support for the next six months and software updates for the next 12 months.

This isn't great news for Robin phone buyers, but it's better than what happened to users of some products, such as wearables maker Fitbit's recent acquisition of smartwatch maker Pebble.

Nextbit did not originally produce mobile phones. It first appeared at the Code/Mobile conference in 2015, providing cloud-based storage for other device manufacturers and operators. The selling point of the company's products is that mobile phone users can store photos and applications in the cloud service to save mobile phone space.

Nextbit then decided to produce its own mobile phones, targeting mid-range consumers.

Nextbit quickly raised more than $1 million in cash through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, doubling its previous fundraising goal. However, in the months between the announcement of the phone and the official launch of the product last spring, the mid-range smartphone market became extremely crowded, attracting a large number of start-ups and established smartphone manufacturers. It can be said that except for Samsung Electronics and Apple , other manufacturers have flocked to it.

Nextbit's final performance failed to meet outside expectations, and it eventually canceled its new mobile phone cooperation plans with Sprint and Verizon.

Nextbit has raised nearly $18 million from outside investors, including Accel Partners and Alphabet's GV. Whether these investors can make a profit depends on the performance of Razer's final initial public offering (IPO). According to sources, Razer's acquisition of Nextbit is all through stock transactions.

Nextbit CEO Moss is more optimistic, believing that asset sales are a way for his team to expand its influence.

"This deal gives us more resources to draw upon as we do our work," Moss said.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.