Pebble lays off one quarter of its staff, says it’s still in for the ‘long haul’

Pebble is laying off 25 percent of its total staff this week (about 40 employees).

CEO Eric Migicovsky confirmed the news to Tech Insider. The company has since issued a statement, “We have a vision where wearables will take us in five to 10 years, and this is setting us up for success.”

Pebble was the first company to successfully raise $10 million on Kickstarter when it launched its first crowdfunding project in 2012. The company initially hoped to raise $100,000, but the cross-platform promise of its watch instantly hit a chord with early adopters. Eventually, the company raised $10,266,845 from nearly 70,000 backers. Pebble came back to Kickstarter with the Pebble Time, which set another record with $20,338,986 raised by 78,471 backers.

We’ve contacted the company to find out if its Waterloo office has been affected by the layoffs.

Migicovsky also confirmed that Pebble has raised an additional $26 million in the last eight months. However, “we’ve definitely been careful this year as we plan our products. “We got this money, but money [among VCs in Silicon Valley] is pretty tight these days,” Migicovsky said.

[source] Tech Insider [/source]