Tesco bolsters its home entertainment package

Supermarket chain Tesco has made an Internet-driven acquisition with the purchase of an 80 per cent majority share in Blinkbox.

The deal, for an undisclosed amount, is part of Tesco's plan to increase its focus on 'the next generation of home entertainment'.

London-based Blinkbox is a movie streaming service which offers titles streamed on the Internet to its customer base. The movie titles are available to buy or rent and are available alongside free-to-view movies and TV shows.

Speaking about its customers, Richard Brasher, CEO of Tesco UK, comments: 'We want to allow them to decide how they access entertainment content and on which devises, whether it's on PC, TV or tablet.

'The acquisition of Blinkbox means we can link physical purchase of a product to the building of digital collections in a new and seamless way.'

The buy achieves an exit for Eden Ventures and Nordic Venture Partners.

Blinkbox was founded in 2006 by former Channel 4 and Vodafone executives, with seed investment from Eden Ventures and Arts Alliance.

Blinkbox CEO, Michael Cornish believes the partnership with Tesco represents another step forward by bringing the movie streaming service together with the UK retailer.