SmartThings, an Internet of things startup based in Washington, D.C., will be moving across the country to Silicon Valley territory after being acquired by Samsung in an undisclosed deal, its chief executive announced on Friday.
The company will be moving from its Georgetown base to Palo Alto, Calif., SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson said in a company blog post. The startup will continue to operate as an independent company within the Samsung umbrella.
"It has always been our goal to create a totally open smart home platform that brings together third-party developers, device makers and consumers," Hawkinson wrote. "We're thrilled that Samsung fully supports this vision."
SmartThings has developed a smart hub that allows all connected home gadgets to communicate in one place, Forbes reported. It will become part of Samsung's Open Innovation Center in Palo Alto.
"While the company has been acquired by Samsung, being in the Open Innovation Center, the company will be kept at arms' length away from Samsung," said Samsung executive vice president David Eun by phone, as quoted by Forbes. "We want people to understand how important it is that they will stay independent. SmartThings will continue to work with its developer community and business partners. In the meantime, we'll be exploring ways to partner with them."
The startup's home connection device is currently in "tens of thousands" of homes, and installations are expanding by around 20 percent each month.
While the acquisition's financial details have not been officially revealed, a source told TechCrunch last month that Samsung paid around $200 million. The South Korean tech heavyweight likely made the deal to get an edge on Google's growing Nest empire.
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