Bits Blog: Samsung Electronics Acquires Boxee, a Video Start-Up

Boxee’s set-top box.

Samsung Electronics confirmed on Wednesday that it had acquired assets and talent from Boxee, a video start-up. The acquisition should help Samsung improve its software for its Internet-connected televisions.

An earlier report by The Marker, an Israeli Web site, said that Samsung purchased the start-up for $30 million. In a statement, a Samsung spokeswoman would confirm only that Samsung had acquired some employees and assets of Boxee but did not disclose how much it had paid.

“Samsung has acquired key talent and assets from Boxee,” the spokeswoman said in a statement. “This will help us continue to improve the overall user experience across our connected devices.”

Samsung has made a hard push into Internet-connected televisions, called smart TVs. Earlier this year, it said that the majority of sets it sells would be smart TVs. But, similar to Samsung’s smartphone software, its smart TV software has often been criticized as being impractical and difficult to use.

That’s where Boxee could come in handy. For a few years now, Boxee has been a hot start-up at the Consumer Electronics Show, one of the biggest technology trade shows in the world. Boxee originally offered computer software for watching any format of digital video. It later shifted to selling a set-top box that runs its software.