Razer Acquires Nexbit, Portends Smartphone Business Play

Razer announced that it has acquired Kickstarter-birthed smartphone manufacturer Nexbit, including its management and employees, in a bid to enter the smartphone market.

Nexbit entered the scene in the form of a Kickstarter smartphone known as the Robin, a cloud-based device that offers powerful performance, plenty of cloud storage, and special backup features. Although the company had to pull back on plans to develop a CDMA option (and refunded all of the CDMA backers), the company fulfilled all of its Robin preorders, but has been ominously quiet since.

Now that Nexbit is being brought into the Razer fold, it has stopped selling Robin and all of its available accessories. However, the company promised it would provide support for the device for another six months, in addition to rolling out software updates and security patches through February 2018.

Although financial details of the deal aren’t known, Nexbit explained that it would continue to operate as an independent division within Razer, with a focus on mobile product design and experiences.

“To put it simply, we’ll be doing exactly what we’ve been doing all along, only bigger and better,” stated the company announcement.

Razer also confirmed the continued existence of Nexbit as its own entity in a press release:

“Nextbit will operate as a standalone business unit under its own management and apart from the ongoing business of its parent company.”

Both companies cite the other’s industry-disrupting tendencies when describing what led to the acquisition, with Razer praising the efforts of the fledgling Kickstarter company in the mobile space, and Nexbit describing Razer as a kindred spirit of sorts:

“They’re rebels like us, they speak from the heart, and they share our need to push boundaries.”

Although it’s not certain when Razer will be rolling out its first Nexbit-developed smartphone, it’s probably safe to say it could be some time. However, Razer hinted that we could be hearing more about it soon in a recent Twitter post, simply stating, “Great things are coming – stay tuned.”