Google and Nest Acquire Dropcam For $555 Million



Remember those rumors a few weeks ago that Google was looking to acquire the plug-and-play security camera company, Dropcam?

Yep. It just happened.

Just months after being acquired themselves, the now Google-owned Nest has just announced that they’ve acquired Dropcam. We’re digging for more details on the deal now, but have confirmed that the final sale price was $555 million in cash.

Wondering what the heck a Dropcam is? They make a few different things, but their namesake device is a WiFi-enabled security camera ($149 or $199, depending on video quality) that requires little-to-no-effort to maintain. You plug it in, get it up on your WiFi, and you’re set. If you just want to be able to check in on your cameras remotely, that’s free; if you want Dropcam to keep an archive of recorded footage on their servers, that’ll cost you anywhere from $10 to $30 a month (depending on how long you want archives kept).

In a blog post on the acquisition, Dropcam founder Greg Duffy explains the move:

Nest and Dropcam are kindred spirits. Both were born out of frustration with outdated, complicated products that do the opposite of making life better. After numerous conversations with Nest Founders Tony and Matt, it was clear that we shared a similar vision.

If privacy advocates were bothered by the idea of Google buying a thermostat, this acquisition will probably send them up the wall.

Right off the bat, Nest founder Matt Rogers started working to sooth the inevitable concerns in his initial announcement of the deal:

Like Nest customer data, Dropcam will come under Nest’s privacy policy, which explains that data won’t be shared with anyone (including Google) without a customer’s permission. Nest has a paid-for business model and ads are not part of our strategy. In acquiring Dropcam, we’ll apply that same policy to Dropcam too.

According to Crunchbase, Dropcam had raised just shy of $48M to date.

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