GoPro Sells 90% Stake in $285 Million Deal to Optical Firm Incorporated One Day Earlier

GoPro announced Tuesday, September 1, 2026, that it has signed a definitive merger agreement with Starman Optical, a privately held photonics company, in a deal valued at $285 million. Existing GoPro shareholders will get $1.14 per share in cash and keep about 10% of the combined company, while Starman takes roughly 90%, according to a joint statement carried by PR Newswire.

GoPro will keep its Nasdaq listing under the ticker GPRO. The company's roughly $92 million in outstanding debt gets wiped out at closing, according to the merger filing. The deal still needs GoPro shareholder approval and regulatory sign-off, with both sides targeting a close by the end of 2026.

A Camera Company Becomes an AI Infrastructure Bet

Starman makes optical transceivers, the hardware that converts electrical signals into light so data can move fast through fiber-optic networks, including the ones running AI data centers. Starman Holding CEO Charles Tebele said in the joint statement that "advanced optics and imaging are essential to AI, national security, and the broader economy, yet much of the critical hardware supporting these technologies continues to be manufactured overseas." He said the combined company intends to bring production of those components back to the United States.

GoPro founder and CEO Nick Woodman framed it as a survival plan with upside: the merger, he said in the same statement, should let GoPro "grow across consumer, commercial and defense markets as a leading American imaging and optical solutions company." GoPro says it will keep supporting its existing HERO and MAX camera lines and its subscription platform while adding the transceiver business and chasing government, defense, robotics and aerospace contracts, according to newsshooter.

The pitch rests on GoPro's patent portfolio, more than 2,500 U.S. patents in optics and imaging built over the company's 24-year history, according to PR Newswire and Epoch Times.

The Numbers That Made This Deal Necessary

GoPro's business has been collapsing for years. Quarterly revenue peaked above $600 million back in 2014; the most recent quarter came in at $105 million, down 31% year-over-year, with a $51 million net loss, according to Epoch Times, citing GoPro's earnings report. In an August 2026 filing, GoPro told federal regulators there was "substantial doubt" about its ability to cover its bills and debts over the next year, a going-concern warning first flagged by TechCrunch and confirmed by Epoch Times.

Woodman put $20 million of his own money into the company earlier this year to keep it afloat, according to TechCrunch. GoPro had also floated pivoting toward defense technology months before this deal surfaced, per TechCrunch and Epoch Times.

Markiplier's Stake and the Stock Spike

A day before the merger announcement, YouTuber Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach disclosed an 8.5% stake in GoPro, making him the company's largest outside shareholder, according to TechCrunch, Crypto Briefing, newsshooter and KuCoin. That disclosure alone sent shares up 43%, according to Crypto Briefing.

The merger announcement then set off a second rally. Reported figures vary by outlet and by the moment of measurement: Crypto Briefing said shares jumped as much as 80% in pre-market trading before settling 40-50% higher by the close; newsshooter put the intraday move at 47%, trading as high as $1.58 after opening around $1.26; KuCoin cited a more than 50% intraday spike to roughly $1.33. The spread reflects the stock's extreme volatility on a thinly traded, low-priced share, not disagreement about direction.

The Open Question: Who Is Starman Optical?

According to TechCrunch, Starman Optical was incorporated in Delaware on August 31, 2026, one day before it announced a $285 million acquisition of a public company. Its manufacturing arm, Starman New Photonics, was created in 2025 and is still building a facility in New Jersey, per TechCrunch. Both entities sit under Starman Holding, a company that also owns consumer accessory brands Incase, Incipio, and Griffin.

Private companies routinely stand up new legal entities specifically to execute a merger, and Starman Holding's existing brands and its New Jersey manufacturing buildout, both confirmed by TechCrunch, suggest real operating history behind the new entity. But Starman Optical itself has no independent public track record, no audited financials in these sources, and no prior product shipments cited anywhere in the coverage. KuCoin describes Starman Optical as "founded in 2024," a full year before the New Photonics facility began construction, which is a detail none of the other outlets independently confirm.

The broader AI infrastructure buildout GoPro is trying to attach itself to is real. Corning CEO Wendell Weeks told Fox News Digital his 175-year-old glass and optical-fiber company expects to double in size within years, driven by data-center demand and a partnership with Nvidia to build three new U.S. manufacturing plants. Nvidia itself posted a quarter with AI-cloud segment sales up 138% year-over-year, according to Breitbart's citation of CNBC. Whether GoPro's patent portfolio and a one-day-old Delaware corporation can actually capture a piece of that market is the question GoPro shareholders will be voting on before the deal closes by year-end.