Intel is set to acquire wearable devices making firm, Basis, for an amount estimated by sources to be in the range of 100 million to 150 million dollars, after it won the auction set up by the company.
According to a report from TechCrunch, Basis was in talks with multiple companies, including Google, for an acquisition and conducted an auction to possibly get a higher value. It was reported that the company which had $30 million in funding from Norwest Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and Intel Capital, was valued under $100 million prior to the auction.
Basis, which competes in the fitness wearables market with the likes of Jawbone and Nike, has managed to secure seven percent of the market. Intel has been interested in the wearables market in recent times and has shown off numerous concept devices such as a Bluetooth headset with Siri-like functionality and smart-chips at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show.
Back in September, Intel announced the Quark series of SoCs for use in wearable devices but does not have a reference product ready yet. Intel"s rival chip-maker Qualcomm has already launched its own smartwatch, Toq, which is rumored to be used by HTC for developing its own wearable device. The acquisition of Basis will further enable the company to develop its own reference designs for such products even if the company does not plan to launch a device publicly.
Source: TechCrunch | Image via DigitalTrends