Fueling speculation that it’s getting ready to enter the connected speaker business, Roku recently acquired Dynastrom, a multi-room audio startup, according to Variety.
In its latest 10-Q filing, Roku disclosed that, on Sept. 6, it acquired a privately held company located in Denmark “to enhance the Company’s player product offering” for $3.5 million in cash. Roku also issued 108,332 shares to two of that company’s founders “as part of a continuing services arrangement.”
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Variety linked that to Denmark-based Dynastrom, citing LinkedIn data showing that its CEO and CTO and other Dynastrom employees had recently joined Roku.
UPDATE: Anthony Wood, Roku’s CEO, confirmed the acquisition of Dynastrom during an interview on Cheddar on Friday (Nov. 10), but didn’t elaborate much on what specific plans Roku has for it.
“They’re a great team. We’re always looking for ways to build out our team, especially with consumer expertise…Audio is an important part of the TV experience.”
Dynastrom has developed AROS, an audio-streaming technology that, the company claims, uses adaptive technology that provides a high quality experience if WiFi conditions are good or bad. It also bills its solution as hardware agnostic, as its system requires only Linux.
Dynastrom’s technology “allows you to create streaming loudspeakers without the tricky and unstable characteristics of today’s systems,” the company explains in this brief video:
Roku hasn’t detailed its plans for Dynastrom, but Varietyreported earlier that company was beefing up in the area of voice and possibly developing a new smart speaker that could compete with products such as Amazon Echo.
