Pebble Concludes Kickstarter Campaign, Hauls in $20 Million for Its Third-Gen Smartwatch Pebble Time

Three years ago, Pebble raised over $10 million on Kickstarter for the launch of its first-gen e-ink watch, the $99 original Pebble Watch. The following year, it released on its own a classier-looking version, the $199 Pebble Steel. In February this year, for the launching of its third-generation flagship product, dubbed the Pebble Time, the company returned to the Kickstarter program for funding. In less than an hour, it blasted through its $500,000 funding goal with a record $1 million in promised support. Now, a month later, it concludes its Kickstarter campaign with a reported $20, 383, 986 from some 78,471 backers.

Pebble's pitch for Pebble Time at its Kickstarter page in part reads: "This is where it all started. Three years ago you supported our vision to make the world's first real smartwatch. The Kickstarter community and our early adopters believed in us before anyone else even knew we existed. You blew us away with your support and kicked off a worldwide movement!.... Pebble was brought to life by 68,929 backers who supported our vision three years ago. Even though we've grown tremendously since then, we're still a small company battling some of the largest competitors in the world. We believe that this is the best and most efficient way for us to get our latest product to the people who want it most: people like you."

Now, the company writes: "It's been an amazing month! Together we launched Pebble Time and Pebble Time Steel, brought the world the smartstrap, along with a one million dollar incentive program, released developer APIs for the new color display and Pebble Timeline, and announced upcoming support for Chinese notifications. We are glad you decided to join us on the next step of this journey. From all of Pebble Team, we sincerely thank you for your support!"

The new Pebble Time features a new design and a colored e-paper display, maintains compatibility with existing Pebble apps and watch faces, and is capable of lasting a full week on a single charge. Among the innovations in the third-gen smartwatch is a new timeline that streamlines Pebble's notifications, arranging them in a single chronological list rather than hiding them in individual apps. Hardware navigation buttons can be used to look at past, present, and future notifications, alarms, and calendar events, giving users access to timely information more easily and quickly than the existing Pebble smartwatch models. Also, unlike Android Wear watches and the upcoming Apple Watch, the Pebble Time works with both iOS and Android.

Most of the $20.3 million funding came from pre-orders of the $199 Pebble Time and the $299 Pebble Time Steel watches, both of which are compatible with the more than 6,500 apps in the Pebble store. The watches are expected to begin shipping by May.