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Rumors of Pebble being acquired by Fitbit last month kept both companies in the spotlight and made them the talk of the town. The price-tag was speculated to be between $34 million and $40 million, an amount according to sources was barely enough to cover the startup’s debts. Initially the company denied confirming any of the rumors. But now Pebble has itself confirmed it’s too crazy to be true whispers as the true ones.
A leader and an innovator in the world of wearable technology with products always high in demand, Pebble has now confirmed its shut down as an independent body. Recently a blog has been posted by Pebble’s CEO Eric Migicovsky about the official confirmation regarding the closing of the company. The company has not revealed the price for which it has been acquired but other details about the acquisition have been presented in the post.
The blog states that the company has decided not to manufacture any of the Pebble’s devices from now on. The CEO of the company thanked Pebble members for their work. Closing the company was not an easy decision to make but Pebble members are not abandoned after the acquisition. Many of the Pebble community members will continue to do their work on the wearable software platform with the new Fitbit team.
Migicovsky stated that no immediate changes will be made to the user experience and all Pebble devices will continue to work normally. However, the CEO did not confirm anything regarding changes in the quality of the Pebble products in future.
It seems that now Pebble’s future rest in the hands of Fitbits and not much time is left for this wrist-wear to reach the end of its functionality road. The blog post stated that the warranty support for Pebble’s devices has already been withdrawn.
Pebble 2 shipping products have been also cancelled although it had started with its production earlier this month. The company is neither taking any more orders for fulfillment. The unfulfilled rewards of the Kickstarter backers are going to get a full refund within 4-8 weeks as a chargeback to their credit cards. Also, any returned Pebble devices before December 7 will also be given a complete refund.
Fitbit’s acquisition revolves around Pebble’s software. According to Migicovsky, the arrangements for Fitbit to acquire the company’s technology, software, and other intellectual property were recently finalized. Fitbit will be assisted with the Pebble’s team to accelerate development of tools and resources with experience for achieving new heights of success.
Furthermore, Pebble’s SDK, mobile apps, CloudPebble, appstore, developer portal, Dictation service, timeline API, firmware, and messaging service will continue to work in the same manner. The cloud services will be phased out in the future and the community will be provided with the ability to take over wherever possible.
Since being founded back in 2009, Pebble has raised $15.38 and the major portion of it came from the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform.
The closing of Pebble is not good news for crowdfunding platforms which are a big help for small scale innovators.
