Pickering, Canada (September 20, 2023)—Canadian residential/commercial audio developer Lenbrook has acquired UK-based MQA, whose high-resolution audio encoding has been used by high-end streamer Tidal and others. MQA went into administration in April after it lost its main backer, Reinet Investments, and problems were only exacerbated when Tidal CEO Jesse Dorogusker announced on Reddit in late June that the open-source FLAC had become “our preferred format for high-resolution audio,” though it would continue to offer the MQA format for now.
With the acquisition, Lenbrook has bolstered its intellectual property portfolio with various MQA patents, and of course, its proprietary audio codecs – MQA and SCL6. Just as important in the acquisition, however, are MQA’s more than 120 licensees and content partnerships; while Tidas is a high-profile customer, it is by no means the only entity working with MQA.
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Indeed, one of those entities is Lenbrook itself, as Andy Dowell, previously the Head of Licensing for MQA, now leading its business development activities under Lenbrook, noted: “As one of MQA’s most significant licensees and also the owner of the award-winning BluOS high-res content platform, Lenbrook is well positioned to build on what was started. Its BluOS platform work has proven that the Lenbrook team understands it takes a certain amount of neutrality to be a licensor, but it can also take a customer view when it comes to the wants and needs from a product development standpoint.”
In a statement, Lenbrook said its primary objective in the acquisition was to provide certainty for business and technical developments that were underway prior to MQA’s administration. As a result, Lenbrook retained a core group of engineers and developers and sales and marketing personnel, including Dowell. The statement went on to underscore Lenbrook’s faith in MQA’s technology and vision by characterizing Lenbrook itself as “a stable and well-capitalized organization that takes a long-term view of investments and market development.”
Gordon Simmonds, chief executive officer of Lenbrook, noted, “We view this acquisition as an opportunity to ensure the technologies developed by the scientists and engineers at MQA continue to serve the industry’s interests rather than be confined to any single brand or company.”
