Betakit | By Ian Hardy | March 23, 2016

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.”

See:

• Pebble’s new smartwatch hits $20M in Kickstarter preorders

• Pebble Skips Kickstarter in Search of Bigger Pond

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, and managed to raise a million dollars in 20 minutes. It also set another record with $20,338,986 raised overall by 78,471 backers.

Pebble has a Canadian connection: its founder, Eric Migicovsky, not only was born in Vancouver, he also graduated from the University of Waterloo systems design engineering program. Migicovsky first founded Allerta, which created a watch for Blackberry devices, and then went on to start Pebble, which in 2013 raised over $26 million in funding from various investors, including Charles River Ventures.

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