Fitbit Acquires Pebble’s Major HR and Intellectual Properties
Fitbit announced that it will acquire human resource and software/firmware assets from Pebble. By doing this, Pebble ends production of all products and will cease operations. Fitbit will accelerate the development of new products using resources acquired from Pebble and will also be able to update existing products.
In addition, it is planned to advance the introduction plan of custom products and third party applications for corporate and research fields. Bloomberg reported that approximately 40% of Pebble employees will continue to be employed at Fitbit.
Pebble said that consumers can continue to use our 2 million Pebble watches we sold, but we can no longer provide support for product warranty etc.
Also, with regard to Pebble Time 2, Pebble Time Round who was recruiting equity funds at Kickstarter, the project is completely canceled. Investors will get refund from Kickstarter by March 2017. On the other hand, products that have been ordered but haven’t shipped yet will not be shipped in the future and will be refundable.
In 2012, Pebble rushed into market with unique durable smartwatch with a fantastic life, and in Kickstarter’s investment recruitment campaign, it gained enthusiastic fans by collecting the highest amount of history. However, it was not possible to create new products, and Pebble products started losing their market share because of rivals i.e. Apple watch and Android wear.
Eric Migicovsky who founded Pebble commented as follows. “Pebble is no longer able to operate as an independent entity. We have made the tough decision to shut down the company and no longer manufacture Pebble devices. This news has several major implications, and we hope to answer as many questions as possible here, in Kickstarter Update #17, and on our Support site.”