Float Left
United States
Float Left was an early connected-TV app developer co-founded by Kirby Grines in 2009, building some of the first apps for the Roku platform before connected TV had become a recognized category. The company was later acquired by iMediaBrands, the parent company of ShopHQ, integrating Float Left's CTV development capability into the parent's streaming and home-shopping operation.
Float Left was the early connected-TV app developer that Kirby Grines co-founded in 2009, building some of the first apps for the Roku platform when Roku had only just launched its hardware and CTV had not yet become a recognized industry category. The company operated through the formative years of the Roku app ecosystem and was later acquired by iMediaBrands — the parent of the ShopHQ home-shopping network — integrating Float Left’s CTV-app development capability into the parent’s streaming and home-shopping operation.
Float Left no longer operates as a distinct entity in our coverage; its inclusion in the directory is as the historical employer that gives Grines’s current 43Twenty consultancy and Streaming Wars publication the operator-side standing on CTV-OS questions that pure marketing-strategy advisors don’t bring. The detail thread — that Float Left helped build the early Roku channel ecosystem before the broader industry was tracking the platform — is the historical anchor for that standing.
Public information on Float Left’s revenue, headcount, exact acquisition date, and acquisition price was not disclosed at the time of the iMediaBrands deal and is not currently available in the public record.