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Roku Acquires Quibi鈥檚 Content

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Less than three months after mobile streaming service said it was shutting down, announced plans Friday to acquire the startup鈥檚 content.

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Roku will acquire more than 75 shows and documentaries created by Quibi and Hollywood-based studios, the company said in a statement. Quibi鈥檚 content includes shows starring actors like Anna Kendrick and Liam Hemsworth, and more than a dozen new shows that hadn鈥檛 even debuted on Quibi.

鈥淭oday鈥檚 announcement marks a rare opportunity to acquire compelling new original programming that features some of the biggest names in entertainment,鈥 Roku’s vice president of programming, Rob Holmes, said in a statement.听

Quibi announced its plans to shut down in October, a little over six months after the streaming service launched. The company, which was led by former CEO and former chairman , was backed by investors including , 听补苍诲 .听

Quibi, short for 鈥渜uick bites,鈥 was meant to be entertainment for people on-the-go. Its programming wasn鈥檛 longer than 10 minutes and was made for smartphones.听

But the pitch to viewers evidently didn鈥檛 land. Quibi officially launched in April, when many people were stuck at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic and had plenty of other streaming options like and Disney Plus. Few people were on-the-go.

Still, investors had put nearly $1.8 billion in funding to back the project. Quibi鈥檚 $750 million in March was the largest round of funding raised by a company in the media and entertainment space last year, according to 附近上门 data. Its $1 billion venture round鈥攊ts first round of financing鈥攚as the second-largest fundraise by a media and entertainment startup in 2018, behind only .听

Funding for media and entertainment startups was down in 2020, both in terms of dollar volume and deal count, according to preliminary 附近上门 data. U.S.-based venture-backed companies in the media and entertainment space raised about $6.2 billion in funding last year, down from $8.9 billion in 2019, 附近上门 data shows.听

Globally, funding was down from $22.3 billion in 2019 to $12.1 billion in 2020.

The number of acquisitions of venture-backed media and entertainment startups is also down year over year, but the dollar volumes have gone up, both in the U.S. and globally.

It鈥檚 important to note that Roku didn鈥檛 acquire Quibi itself. After Quibi did an internal restructuring, Roku acquired Quibi Holdings LLC, which holds all of Quibi鈥檚 content distribution rights, according to a statement from the company.听

The number of streaming services available has increased as more networks have opted to create their own services rather than having their content available on other platforms. Disney Plus and 鈥檚 Peacock are among the newer players in the game, and Disney in 2019 also acquired streaming service .

Financial terms of the Roku-Quibi deal were not disclosed.

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