Roku CEO Says IPO Could Come Next Year; Netflix Sells Stake
Set-top maker Roku is still raising venture capital cash but it is already talking about an IPO. CEO Anthony Wood tells Bloomberg that the company may go public as soon as 2011. In the meantime, it is in the process of raising a $30 million round from investors, including existing backer Menlo Ventures, which has also bought out Netflix’s stake in the company.
Roku—which is best known for providing access to Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) streaming—has made a big effort to up the amount of content it makes available since its launch nearly two years ago. It has announced content deals with Amazon’s video on demand service, Blip.tv and MLB.tv. This fall, it released a software development kit so that any third-party content provider could add a channel. And it also recently introduced lower-priced set top boxes.