A Tiny Camcorder Has a Big Payday
By ASHLEE VANCE
Published: March 19, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Pure Digital Technologies thought
small and simple, and it paid off big time. Noah Berger for The
New York Times
Jonathan Kaplan, chief executive of Pure Digital, with one of the
company’s video cameras.
The tiny, eight-year-old start-up famed for its inexpensive and
easy to use Flip video cameras has defeated a down economy. On
Thursday, the 100-person company was bought by Cisco Systems,
a technology infrastructure giant, for $590 million in stock. The deal caps off a bumpy and
unpredictable rise for Pure Digital, which bested the Asian companies that dominate the camera
industry from an office located above the Gump’s department store in the heart of San Francisco.
“At a time when everybody has just been hammered with stories of misery, this is a really fabulous
tale of what is possible against all odds,” said Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist at Sequoia
Capital, which invested in Pure Digital.
Over the last couple of years, Cisco has expanded beyond selling networking equipment for large
computing centers, making inroads into the home via set-top boxes, routers and — most recently
— digital stereos. The company has been clear about building upon these efforts by aiming much
of its nearly $34 billion in cash at future acquisitions.
In Pure Digital, Cisco found a local talent to complement its consumer ambitions and extend its
business videoconferencing technology to mobile devices.
Pure Digital started selling the Flip line of products in 2007 and has since shipped more than two
million units, which cost $150 to $230, depending on the model. The device’s claim to fame has
been its minimalism.
The Flip recorders have just a few buttons, weigh a few ounces and have 1.5-inch screens. In
addition, they arrive without cables, relying on a built-in connector that plugs into a computer’s
U.S.B. port for both recharging and transferring video files.
Along with the device, Pure Digital offers software that helps shift videos from a personal
computer to online services like YouTube and Facebook with the click of a couple of buttons.
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