Pebble lays off 25% of their staff

The smartwatch is a unique category of smart-enabled devices, as it is getting more and more crowded everyday with companies offering multiple versions or models of their smartwatch. And it looks like Pebble is getting hit hard with the change in the market, as they are laying off 40 of their employees, or roughly 25% of their staff.

Pebble CEP Eric Migicovsky said in a recent interview with Tech Insider that the layoffs were necessary because of a lack of funds. "Money is pretty tight these days," he said, inferring that making money in Silicon Valley can be difficult at times.

Also according to TechInsider, Pebble has seemed to raise $26 million over the past eight months, which is a rarity for venture capital firms as earnings are down for those types of companies. And while sales figures for the past year have not been announced, Pebble made roughly $20 million worth of Smartwatches during a Kickstarter campaign at the beginning of 2015.

With the smartwatch market ever changing, Pebbles future is up in the air, and Migicovsky hints at it as he is suggesting that their future products could be focused towards health and fitness features, which he sees consumers having more interest in.

With the recent layoffs, Pebble lost their head of Product, which was Itai Vonshak. He was responsible for creating Pebble's Timeline Interface. He has since moved on to Intel. Migicovsky claims that the layoffs are a preventative measure, saying that "We want to be careful."

Via: | The Verge |

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Source: | Tech Insider |

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Image Credits: | Vox |

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