SUBSCRIBE

Tag

acquisition

Pebble Shut Down Fitbit Acquire Assets Intellectual Property Smartwatch
Business, Watches, Wearable Technology

Fitbit Pebble Deal Final, Details Emerge As Sales Cease

December 7, 2016

Pebble Shut Down Fitbit Acquire Assets Intellectual Property Smartwatch

As rumored, Fitbit has officially finalized their buyout of Pebble. Though, using the term “buyout” or “purchase” seems a bit misleading. In fact, Pebble sent out an email today declaring that they were shutting down the company. The communication referred to Fitbit deciding to purchase “key assets.” Therefore, counter to the original rumor, Fitbit is not acquiring Pebble. Instead, Pebble closed shop today and Fitbit was first in line to buy any meaningful assets. While a small detail, this means that the financials at Pebble were likely far worst than predicted.

If we had to guess, similar to last summer, Pebble was desperate for more cash. Likely, they once again could not find the money through VC and this time were not able to get another bank loan. Their only option at that point would be to sell or close. Pretty much confirming that line of thinking, in an email from Pebble this morning it states that they “can no longer operate as an independent entity.” This is all pretty astounding for a company that turned down a purchase offer from Citizen for $740 million in early 2015 (not even 2 years ago). Recognizing the immediate need to sell, Pebble most likely could not find a purchaser willing to acquire all assets including debt, therefore the only sound business decision left was to shut down (business school 101: shutting down is always a viable option). Details are emerging on what assets Fitbit is purchasing and what Pebble’s closure means for customers and employees.  

Continue reading
by Doug Parker
Leave a comment
Fitbit pebble acquisition buy merger smartwatch fitness tracker value price
Business, Watches, Wearable Technology

Fitbit’s Acquisition of Smartwatch Maker Pebble Is Smart – Here’s Why

December 2, 2016

Fitbit pebble acquisition buy merger smartwatch fitness tracker value price

With fitness trackers becoming more and more of a commodity item, it is no surprise that Fitbit would be looking to expand their business. The most logical space for the company to move towards is smartwatches, after all, a smartwatch is basically a souped up, more connected activity tracker. While the company has tested the market with two devices that straddle the line between a smartwatch and fitness tracker (the Surge and Blaze), they are too much of an in-between device. Despite costing as much as a smartwatch, they are both overly sporty looking and lack the level of connectivity needed to really function as a smartwatch. A smartwatch needs an intelligent and informative OS that has app-like functionality. Instead of venturing into the smartwatch world alone, it looks like Fitbit will acquire Pebble, producers of the Kickstarter funded e-paper smartwatches.  

Continue reading
by Doug Parker
Leave a comment
Asics Acquires Aquisition Runkeeper app
Business, Sports

Asics Acquires Popular Running App Runkeeper

February 26, 2016

Aquisition Asics Acquires Popular Running App Runkeeper iOS MYASICS run tracking

More and more if you want to taken seriously in the fitness apparel space you need an app. Nike has been developing apps in-house for years, Under Armour purchased MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, and Endomondo, and Adidas acquired Runtastic. Wanting to keep up with the competition, Asics has snapped up one of the largest remaining fitness apps, Runkeeper. Runkeeper is a veteran iOS app, having been among the first apps in the App Store when the store launched in 2008. While Asics already has a decent (and well liked) app with MY ASICS, it has failed to create the passion, community, and popularity that Runkeeper has. To illustrate this, MY ASICS has approximately 600 reviews on the App Store while Runkeeper has nearly 45,000 reviews and boasts a user base of over 45 million! The acquisition is estimated to be valued at $85 million. Runkeeper founder Jason Jacobs took to Medium to announce the news and stated that app will continue to exist and be developed. For the end-user he expects very little difference except improved resources to allow developers to be bring things to bear that would not have been possible otherwise.  

Continue reading
by Doug Parker
Leave a comment
Fossil Q Misfit Shine Acquisition
Wearable Technology

Fossil Gets Serious About Wearables, Acquires Misfit

November 13, 2015

Fossil Q Misfit Shine Acquisition

If you were excited about Fossil’s highly publicized entrance into the wearable space a few weeks ago, things just got A LOT more interesting. Fossil has acquired Misfit, the makers of the very popular Flash and Shine activity trackers. The acquisition is valued at $260 million and will shift Misfit’s CEO, Sonny Vu, to Fossil’s CTO. It isn’t known exactly how Misfit and their products / IPs will be integrated into their new parent company, but Misfit has built a reputation for producing small, capable, inexpensive, and durable activity trackers, powered by relatively (compared to Fossil) mature phone apps. This expertise could be used by Fossil to help catapult the quality and capabilities of the company’s devices and software. It is not known how the acquisition will effect Misfit’s day-to-day operations or their current lineup of products; for the time being, I would not expect any significant changes.

Short term, I would look for elements of Misfit’s apps to be migrated into the Fossil Q app. Additionally I would expect to see key device firmware features such as Misfit’s auto-sleep-sensing algorithms make their way into the current Fossil wearable lineup. But we are most excited to see what future products are created from this acquisition. Misfit has some of the most distinctive looking wearable devices on the market. It would be fantastic to see some of the unique aesthetics from Misfit incorporated into future Fossil products. The Shine 2 is not only stunning though, it is also more featured pack than practically any wearable in its price point. This could bode particularly well for future Fossil Q Reveler and Dreamer models.

Continue reading
by Doug Parker
Leave a comment
Business

Yahoo Snatches Up Polyvore for $230 Million

August 4, 2015

Polyvore Yahoo Acquisition

Yahoo! Inc has announced a deal to acquire the shopping website Polyvore. The deal is rumored to be worth $230 Million plus another $40 million to retain key employees. The fashion site, which launched in 2007, is viewed by 20 million unique visitors per month, according to numbers released last year. Likely key to the purchase is Polyvore’s unique social take on shopping. The site features a huge selection of items available through partnerships with other retailers, such as Saks, Bergdorf, Nordstrom. Based off of what items users are “liking,” the site tracks and displays what types of styles are trending. Users can also create “sets.” These “sets” basically serve as looks that can be shared with other users and then be shopped from. The addition of Polyvore will bring a new community of active users into Yahoo’s fold and, perhaps more importantly, advertising relationships with over 350 retailers. While Yahoo tends to favor smaller acquisitions, mainly for talent, the tech company has made a few other large moves before, including the $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr and $300 million for analytics firm Flurry. Surely, Polyvore’s dedicated user base is a bit nervous about what the acquisition means for them; hopefully there will be few adverse changes.

Continue reading
by Doug Parker
Leave a comment