We’ve probably heard about Pebble for the first time in 2012 when this start-up launched on Kickstarter their smartwatch, based on e-paper. Although that product was met with positive reviews and acclaim from the audience, since then, Pebble hasn’t had much success. Last year, the company ended up with so many debts that people started talking about possible acquisition of Pebble by other companies.
And that’s exactly what’s going to happen – Pebble will be taken over by the company Fitbit, the current leader on the wearable market. In fact, according to TechChurch, Fitbit will pay only $34-40 mil for this acquisition. The amount of money is very small for such huge companies, especially considering that Pebble had much more appealing offers earlier (from Citizen for $740 mil or from Intel for $70 mil).
The same source suggests that the most part of the money will be used for paying off Pebble’s debts (more than $25 mil.). However, that’s not what attracted Fitbit the most. Pebble had some interesting items of its intellectual property, like their own skin for smartwatches. So, we may hear about innovative projects and ideas from Fitbit quite soon. Given that the company is very successful now, this acquisition may be another step towards popularity.
