Pebble may have started the smartwatch revolution but sad to say, it had to bow out of business. Before 2016 ended, Fitbit was rumored to be acquiring Pebble and its pioneering OS. Talks of the Pebble Time 2 and Pebble Core being cancelled were heard and a few days later, the news of acquisition was confirmed. The two companies began working to continue services and so fans and users still see updates with new features and goodies.
It’s been almost two months since news of Fitbit’s acquisition and now we have information as to how much it is shelling out to pay for Pebble’s assets including intellectual property and talent. The company said that it spent $23 million in Q4 2016 to finalize the purchase. The amount isn’t exactly big but actually less than previous estimates since Pebble earlier raised a higher amount in Kickstarter. It’s about $40 million according to Bloomberg.
Recently, Fitbit also acquired the software platform of Vector Watch for $15 million.
The company may be shopping for new assets but unfortunately, the brand hasn’t been reaching its goals despite the holiday season. There were even reports of layoffs because Q4 numbers were down and expectations were not reached. Surprisingly though, active users went up to 23.2 million from 16.9m. Stock is also up despite the loss in revenue and netincome. Hopefully, numbers will improved this Q1 and the rest of 2017.
VIA: Venture Beat
