Pebble got in on the current smartwatch wave pretty early, but with the rise of Android Wear and the Apple Watch, folks have been wondering how Pebble would fare. Today’s there’s some bad news out of the Pebble camp.
Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky has confirmed that his company is laying off 40 employees this week, which works out to be around 25 percent of Pebble’s staff. Migicovsky said that “money [among VCs in Silicon Valley] is pretty tight these days” when it comes to raising funds from investors, but he did say that Pebble has raised $26 million in the last eight months.
Despite these layoffs, Migicovsky says that Pebble isn’t going anywhere. “Pebble is in this for the long haul,” he explained. “We have a vision where wearables will take us in five to 10 years, and this is setting us up for success.”
Pebble smartwatches do have some advantages over Android Wear and Apple Watch, like longer battery life thanks to their e-paper displays. However, Android Wear and Apple Watch have the advantage of being made by Google and Apple, respectively, so they can offer unique features and have the marketing support of those two huge companies. The smartwatch market is still young, and Pebble isn’t going to disappear overnight, but it’s going to be interesting to see how things shake out in the next year or two.
