After Turning Down $740 Million from Citizen, Pebble Accepts $35 Million from Fitbit
Fitbit is poised to acquired Pebble, a new report suggests, pointing to consolidation of a saturated wearables market.
According to The Information, the deal is all but done. And a tweet from Pebble—quickly deleted—seemed to confirm the news.
Interestingly, the deal seems to have been far from Pebble’s best. According to TechCrunch, watchmaker Citizen offered Pebble $740 million in 2015 and Intel offered $70 million. Now FitBit has swooped in with a lowball of around $35 million, which will barely cover Pebble’s debts.
CEO Eric Migicovsky, it seems, turned out the good offers, confident Pebble was going to be huge, despite evidence pointing toward a highly competitive market with limited demand. In 2014, Migicovsky laughed off the launch of Apple Watch, for example. In March, the company was forced to shed a quarter of its workforce.
According to The Information, Fitbit intends to eventually shut down Pebble.
