Jawbone, the company that made fitness trackers and Bluetooth speakers, is liquidating its assets, according to a source familiar with its plans, marking the latest casualty in the once-promising wearable device market.
Jawbone founder and CEO Hosain Rahman has started a new company called Jawbone Health Hub, which will work on medical software and hardware. The company has raised money for the new venture, but it's unclear how much, the source said.
Despite shuttering the business, Jawbone believes it is still worth a significant amount of money due to its pending litigation with rival Fitbit, according to the source.Â
Jawbone, which was once valued as high as $3 billion by private market investors, is the latest pioneer of wearable electronics to throw in the towel. Last year, smartwatch maker Pebble sold its assets to Fitbit in a fire sale. As for Fitbit, its stock is trading at 52-week lows.
The Information was the first to report the news of Jawbone's liquidation. A Jawbone spokesperson declined to comment.
Jawbone stopped producing its fitness trackers last year, according to sources familiar with the company. It no longer sold them as of September 2016. Jawbone sold its remaining inventory to a third-party reseller at a reduced price in order to generate much-needed revenue, sources said. The company also had trouble paying some vendors for their services and was forced to cut ties with its external customer service agency, sources said.
Jawbone was in the process of making a shift to making "clinical-grade" wearable devices that could measure vitals like blood pressure, but the company was having trouble getting the device to work properly, sources told Business Insider. It's unclear if Jawbone Health Hub will continue work on the device. Jawbone Health Hub will service current Jawbone fitness trackers. Jawbone was last valued at $1.5 billion when it raised $165 million in a down round in January 2016, according to Recode's Kara Swisher. Its previous valuation was about $3 billion, and it raised a total of about $1 billion over the years.
If you know anything about Jawbone's liquidation or anything else related to the company, you can email [email protected].
JohnnyHighGround on July 7th, 2017 at 21:14 UTC »
My wife and I bought first-generation Jawbone Up...s. I believe this was before anyone else was doing a similar form factor, certainly before there were any at the same price point. The thing worked fine until my wife's completely died in like a month. Then mine did.
Then everyone else's did too.
Then Jawbone did one of the most wonderful things I've ever seen a big company do: They took responsibility, contacted every owner to let them know there was a previously unknown flaw in the design, and made it almost laughably easy to get a full (and fast) refund. Not a credit toward a future purchase—a refund. I'm sure they figured at least some of that money would come back when they figured their ish out.
And then Fitbit happened.
2pt5RS on July 7th, 2017 at 16:37 UTC »
TIL Jawbone was a fitness tracking company. Here I thought they only made overpriced bluetooth headphones and speakers.
zephroth on July 7th, 2017 at 15:53 UTC »
I always thought that they were too expensive for the quality of the product. Hell i bought a voyager edge for $76 and it lasted me around 2 years and has excellent quality. But jawbone always fell from my lists when i was comparison shopping.