Nextbit has been bought by Razer, will continue ‘cool stuff in mobile’

Nextbit is now a Razer company.

The smartphone-maker announced Monday it was acquired by the peripheral company on 27 January. Nextbit’s press release specifically mentioned that Razer “has acquired the majority of the assets of Nextbit Systems Inc and has brought onboard the management and employees of the company”. Full financial details of the deal were not disclosed in the announcement.

This isn’t Razer’s first major acquisition of a startup. A couple years ago, it scooped up a portion of Ouya, the company behind the Kickstarted $99 Android console. The purchase only included the content catalogue, software assets, online store, and the name Ouya, rather than the console hardware. As for Nextbit, it will remain a standalone business unit with its own management.

Former members of Google’s Android team, along with the former head of design at HTC, founded Nextbit in 2015. The CEO of Nextbit, Tom Moss, told The Verge Monday that the “whole team” will be joining Razer, allowing the company access to more resources than it previously had. The Nextbit staff will physically remain at their San Francisco office for the time being, however.

Moss also said Nextbit plans to continue doing “cool stuff in mobile” under Razer. So far, the company has only released one smartphone, called the Robin, which released a year ago, thanks to a Kickstarter campaign. In our review of the Robin, we said it offers a good Android experience without breaking the bank and that its stand-out cloud storage solution works well.

Nextbit is joining the @Razer family! Now we’ll have more resources for more exciting (rebellious) projects. https://t.co/rC6Oww7TMO pic.twitter.com/HJScaIlVfS

— Nextbit (@nextbitsys) January 30, 2017