Fitbit Paid a Mere $23 Million to Acquire Wearables Competitor Pebble

As Fitbit continues to struggle in the fitness tracker market, it recently acquired smartwatch makers Pebble and Vector Watch. It turns out, they got a bargain in both deals.

The Pebble Deal

While the Pebble acquisition was rumored to have cost Fitbit $40 million, the fitness wearables maker now reports that it was able to buy Pebble for just $23 million. That’s a nice discount of nearly 50%, or around the same amount Pebble resellers are knocking off the price of the now discontinued devices.

Pebble had put itself on the sales block earlier last year, claiming a net worth of around $200 million. However, due to the smartwatch company’s struggles releasing new technology and the state of the wearables market in general, no one took the bait.

The Vector Deal

Vector Watch was an even better bargain for Fitbit, going for a paltry $15 million. However, considering the tiny piece of the smartwatch market Vector had, it remains to be seen how much of a bargain the transaction will turn out to be.

Fitbit will not continue making either Pebble or Vector Watch devices, leaving current users to eventually be left with a less than satisfactory experience with their smartwatches. FitBit bought both companies for their technology, but it remains to be seen what they do with all that IP.

(Via Slashgear)

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