Time might be ticking on Pebble's viability ~ lotfi

Pebble was one of the first smartwatch success stories but that success might be short lived, with the indomitable Apple Watch now on the scene and growing competition from Android Wear, along with various other indie smartwatch projects emerging.

It certainly looks like Pebble might be struggling, as despite raising around $18 million with its Pebble Time Kickstarter the company is reportedly struggling to maintain its growth and has been turned down by Silicon Valley VCs, forcing it to take out a $5 million bank loan and a $5 million line of credit "in order to stay afloat."

That's according to unnamed sources close to the company speaking to Tech Crunch, one of which also claimed that many employees weren't happy with the direction the company was taking.

Pebble's time isn't up yet

But there's still hope. Despite seemingly facing financial problems an anonymous employee claimed that "we're a young company. The outlook for Pebble is very positive" and given Pebble's small size it presumably only needs a relatively small piece of the smartwatch market to remain profitable.

Whether it will manage that in the face of such stiff competition remains to be seen, but we're fans of the company's products, so we hope so.