Corsair Eyes Custom Keyboard Market With Drop Acquisition

Corsair is bulking up its PC accessory profile by acquiring a stake in Drop, which makes custom mechanical keyboards known for featuring assets from popular movie franchises. 

Exact terms of the deal were not announced. For now, Corsair has only said(Opens in a new window) it’s acquiring “certain assets” from Drop, which is based in San Francisco and began as Massdrop.  

“Personalized keyboards that can be modified by the consumer is one of the fastest growing trends in the gaming peripheral space,” says Corsair CEO Andy Paul. ”Drop has proven to be one of the leaders in this space and with Corsair’s global footprint, we expect to significantly grow the Drop brand worldwide.” 

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Consumers can expect Drop to release more products—and at a faster clip—since it plans on leveraging Corsair’s sales and logistics platform. To stand out, Drop previously partnered with the Marvel(Opens in a new window) and The Lord of the Rings(Opens in a new window) franchises on custom keycaps and keyboards.

In a note(Opens in a new window) to customers, Drop CEO Jef Holove said his company operates with a relatively small team. Founded in 2011, Drop started as a group-buying site for limited keyboard releases while letting internet users vote on which products it should sell. It has since transitioned to a “hybrid model that finds cool stuff other people make, while designing and manufacturing stuff ourselves, and at the same time moving more and more to an in-stock model,” Holove said. 

“It’s clear you want us to do more. And, we do too. As part of Corsair, we will,” he said. “You’ll see new products from us soon that Corsair is just as excited about as we were in creating them. You’ll see new collabs with community favorites. Access to a world-class supply chain will make getting you those products more reliable.”  

The Drop brand will also remain separate from Corsair, which did the same with Origin when it bought the PC maker in 2019. But it’ll be interesting to see if Corsair features or adopts some mechanical keyboard products from Drop for its own portfolio.