GoPro Is Being Bought for $285 Million and Pivoting to AI and Defense Optics

GoPro has agreed to merge with a privately held optics company called Starman Optical in a deal worth $285 million. The company will stay listed on the Nasdaq, keep selling cameras, and push into AI data center hardware and defense.

The merger was announced Tuesday morning, landing after years of financial trouble at the action camera maker. Under the deal's terms, GoPro shareholders will collectively be paid $285 million in cash, amounting to approximately $1.14 for each share, while retaining close to 10% ownership of the merged business. The $1.14 per share works out to a 29.5% bump over where the stock last closed, and the company's approximately $92 million of outstanding debt will be fully paid off when the transaction closes, resulting in a balance sheet that is largely free of debt. The boards of both companies have approved the deal, and it is expected to close by the end of 2026, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.

Starman brings U.S.-made optical transceivers to the table, the kind of hardware that moves data around inside modern data centers. The combined company plans to chase demand in AI infrastructure, along with government, defense, robotics, and aerospace work, all framed around the appeal of American-made components. GoPro says it will keep supporting its existing cameras plus its subscription and cloud platform. Nicholas Woodman, GoPro's founder and CEO, said the deal is expected to let the company "grow across consumer, commercial and defense markets as a leading American imaging and optical solutions company, addressing important areas of national security related to cameras, optics and AI infrastructure." He added, "We're excited to combine with the Starman team to capitalize on this opportunity and play an important role in America's future."

To understand why GoPro reached this point, look at the last few months. In June, GoPro warned shareholders it might not survive the next 12 months without new funding, filing a going-concern warning tied to a brutal first quarter. Sales dropped 26% compared with a year earlier, landing at $99 million, while camera unit sell-through slid 29% to roughly 313,000 units, and the company reported a loss of $80.8 million. A sudden spike in memory component costs, part of a wider supply shock, made an already bad forecast worse. In July, Woodman stepped in personally, agreeing to provide $20 million in senior secured notes to buy the company time while its board reviewed strategic alternatives.

There is a strange subplot here too. A day or so before the merger news, YouTuber Mark Fischbach, known online as Markiplier, disclosed an 8.5% stake in GoPro through a Schedule 13G filing, making him the company's largest individual shareholder. Fischbach had used GoPro cameras to shoot behind-the-scenes footage for his film and became a vocal fan of the company's Mission 1 Pro ILS cinema camera. His stake sent the beaten-down stock surging, drawing comparisons to the GameStop meme-stock era. If the merger closes at a premium to where shares had been trading, that bet looks a lot better than it did a month ago.

The practical question is what happens to the gear and the roadmap. The language in the announcement is reassuring on cameras, subscriptions, and cloud, but the center of gravity is clearly shifting toward optics for data centers and defense, not toward the next action cam. GoPro helped invent the action camera category and once carried a valuation near $4 billion on its first day of trading in 2014. The company that emerges from this merger will still make cameras, including the Mission 1 Pro ILS, but it is planning to make its money somewhere else.