- GoPro has been acquired by private company Starman Optical, an optical photonics specialist
- Though describing the deal as a “merger”, Starman has paid $285 million cash
- The merged company plans to leverage its IP across “defense, government, robotics and aerospace markets”
It’s been no secret lately that the action camera maker GoPro has been in financial trouble. As such, the news that the company has been acquired might seem like cause for celebration for action camera fans — but once you start looking closer, things quickly appear a little less rosy. In fact, this news has convinced me to hold off on purchasing any of the Mission 1 cameras, which went up for pre-order this week.
In a statement put out on September 1, GoPro announced its acquisition by Starman Optical Inc, a private optical photonics company. Though the deal was called a merger, Starman paid $285 million cash for the ailing action camera company, in a deal that also took care of the company’s considerable $92 million debts.
It’s the tone of the statement that really has me concerned. In it, GoPro seems to downplay its status as a producer of beloved consumer cameras, opting instead to describe its work as “industry-leading imaging solutions featuring innovative, advanced optics, market-defining technology and an associated IP portfolio.”
This certainly aligns with Starman, a company that develops optical transceivers and related infrastructure, and describes itself on its website as ‘Manufacturing America’s AI Infrastructure’. And it makes it sound a lot like the plan is for GoPro to pivot away from consumer cameras and into optics and AI infrastructure.
An included quote from GoPro CEO Nick Woodman does not allay my worries. He says: “We expect this merger to enable GoPro to grow across consumer, commercial and defense markets as a leading American imaging and optical solutions company, addressing important areas of national security related to cameras, optics and AI infrastructure. We’re excited to combine with the Starman team to capitalize on this opportunity and play an important role in America’s future.”
Sure, he mentions consumer cameras — once, briefly, before mentioning a lot of other things in much greater detail. And the release assures us that GoPro “will continue to fully support its existing consumer products and its subscription and cloud platform”. But we’ve all heard that one before.
The future of GoPro cameras
I was genuinely pretty excited for the new GoPro Mission 1 series. It felt like a bit of a fresh start for a company that had been struggling to innovate, and frankly was having its lunch eaten by the likes of the excellent DJI Osmo Action 6.
The idea of an action camera that could take Micro Four Thirds lenses was genuinely new and interesting — and while my style would be a more traditional action camera like the Mission 1 Pro, it was nice to feel like GoPro was innovating again, after years of inarguable stagnation spent releasing slightly different Hero variants.
But GoPro cameras aren’t just about the cameras themselves. A massively important aspect is the ecosystem; many features of the cameras require the Quik app (or at least are made much easier with it), and action cameras in general require a lot of accessories and mounts in order to be useful.
If I buy a Mission 1 camera, can I be sure that the app is going to keep being compatible with my devices? Is GoPro going to keep providing firmware updates, and will it still be producing accessories for the camera five years down the line?
This merger announcement simply doesn’t give me any confidence that this will be the case. So, I’m holding off on a Mission 1 purchase for now — and I hope to be proven wrong.
