Pebble 2, $12.8 Million

Pebble’s third Kickstarter ends with $12.8M raised, $7.5M less than last year:

Smartwatch maker Pebble wrapped its third Kickstarter campaign today with $12,779,754 in preorders for the company’s upcoming products: the Pebble 2, the Time 2, a little Spotify streaming box, and a refresh to the Time Round line.

Pledges this year fell short of last year’s milestone of more than $20 million, but surpassed the company’s 2012 campaign, when it collected about $10 million.

Let’s start with the obvious: Enthusiasm for new Pebble watches appears to have slipped. Pebble has a history of breaking its own records — as well as Kickstarter’s — and that didn’t happen this year. It took the company a mere 48 hours to surpass $10 million in preorders in February 2015. This time around, it took Pebble more than twice as long.

I wish I had problems like raising 12.8 million dollars.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Pebble in the long term with Apple likely debuting a new Watch this fall and Google updating their Android Wear. I wonder if Pebble can hold on to and grow their loyal customer base or if they’ll get squeezed out.