For nearly 25 years, GoPro cameras have gone underwater, skydived and skied, allowing adventurers to capture images of their experiences.
But the California company now faces a battle for survival amid growing competition, questionable demand for electronics and rising material costs.
Its status is written in US securities filings that contain secret language.
GoPro “suffered operating losses and negative operating cash flows,” PricewaterhouseCoopers said.
Failure to meet GoPro’s commitments under the financing agreements would “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern,” the audit firm added.
Such language and the restatement of financial statements means creditors could assert an “event of default” under the agreements, said GoPro, which described itself as “in active discussions” with lenders, including Farallon Capital Management and Wells Fargo.
The company has also engaged a financial advisory firm “to evaluate a number of strategic alternatives that may include a sale of the company or a merger,” GoPro announced in May.
Since then, no buyer has emerged. GoPro did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment.
– Capture the passions of life –
Launched in 2002 by Nick Woodman, who initially sought to capture footage of his surfing ventures, GoPro went public in 2014.
Woodman rang the bell on the Nasdaq trading floor, and the company promoted its products as a way to enable “people to capture their life’s passions in ways they never could before.”
The company’s ability to record and share live images from activities fits well with the growth of social media, although heavy competition from smartphones has been a constant challenge.
In May, Morgan Stanley equity analysts said they were maintaining a “cautious stance” on the company, citing “continued uncertainty within the consumer electronics market, as well as increased competitive pressures and memory headwinds.”
The company’s revenue in 2025 reached $651.5 million, down about 44 percent from four years ago.
In April, GoPro announced it had hired management consulting firm Oliver Wyman to help it pursue new opportunities for its technology with the defense and aerospace sector.
In a conference call in May, Woodman told analysts that the company had received “some incoming inquiries regarding” mergers and acquisitions from “various” interested parties, adding: “I am fully supportive of evaluating strategic opportunities for the company to unlock shareholder value.”
Morgan Stanley described the outlook as potentially promising, but added that the current strategic reboot “is not GoPro’s first attempt at reinvention.”
On May 28, GoPro announced that its new Mission 1 product line was available, describing the series as “the world’s smallest, lightest and most robust 8K and 4K Open Gate cinema cameras”.
But the company reported a first-quarter loss on revenue of just $99.1 million, down 26 percent from the year-ago period.
GoPro also announced in April that it would cut 23 percent of its staff, which had numbered 631.
