Pebble lays off quarter of staff

Pebble will lay off a quarter of its staff this week, about 40 employees. Founder and director Eric Migicovsky said so. The layoffs would be necessary because Pebble can’t get enough money.

Migicovsky blames the layoffs on a “cold investment climate” in Silicon Valley, Tech Insider writes. “We have this money, but it’s hard to come by now,” the Pebble executive said in an interview with the site. Pebble has raised a total of $26 million, currently about $23.25 million.

Pebble is “cautious” about product planning this year. Last year, the company released three new models. The Time, Time Steel and Time Round. In the years before, Pebble came out with a new smartwatch every year. Migicovsky says the company focuses primarily on health and fitness aspects of its watches, because that’s what users would be most interested in. For a few months, Pebbles of the Time generation have had the Health app on board to count steps, among other things.

Pebble had around 160 employees before the layoff, of which about 120 will remain after the reorganization. The only indication of sales figures is the installations of the Pebble Time app, which all Pebble owners should use to connect to their smartphone. It is unknown how many downloads it has in the App Store, but in the Google Play Store the number is between 100,000 and 500,000. All Pebbles, including those of the first generation, can use the Time app, making it appear that Pebble on Android has up to half a million active users.