Pebble Time Is the Fastest Funded Project in Kickstarter History In a few short hours, the new Pebble smartwatch has already raised $4.6 million and shows no sign of slowing down.
By Jason Fell
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
UPDATE: Less than 48 hours after launching, Pebble Time officially topped the company's previous Kickstarter record. The original Pebble raised $10,266,845 (from 68,929 backers) over more than 30 days on Kickstarter in 2012. As of 9:40 a.m. ET on February 26, Pebble Time has raised $10,267,596 from 47,562 backers. It is now the second most-funded Kickstarter project behind The Coolest Cooler, which raised nearly $13.3 million last year. Pebble Time still has 29 days before the campaign closes.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based smartwatch company Pebble had a great idea when it decided to launch its newest watch, the Pebble Time, on Kickstarter today. In just 49 minutes, the watch had already raised $1 million, displacing the previous record holder -- Reaper Miniature Bones, a gaming miniatures project, which hit $1 million in two hours, 42 minutes.
Sounds impressive. Oh, but the story isn't over yet. Pebble Time hit $4 million in less than three hours after going live on Kickstarter at 10 a.m. ET today. For that record, the previous holder was the Ouya game console, which took two days, 19 hours to reach that funding level.
"It's clearly the fastest funded project in Kickstarter history," Kickstarter communications director David Gallagher says. Pebble had set a funding goal of just $500,000.
Related: Pebble Is Launching a New Smartwatch Today on Kickstarter
Pebble Time is the newest iteration of the company's popular smartwatch. Among the new features, Pebble Time includes a color e-paper display (instead of just black and white), a microphone and is about 20 percent slimmer than the original Pebble. It will also run on an updated Pebble operating system called Timeline.
The watch will retail later this year for $199 but is available on Kickstarter for $159.
In 2012, Pebble launched its flagship smartwatch on Kickstarter, raising more than $10 million. It is the second most-funded Kickstarter project behind The Coolest Cooler, which raised nearly $13.2 million.
So far, Pebble Time has raised nearly $5 million (in just over four hours!) and ranks as Kickstarter's 8th must-funded project. Pebble Time still has 31 more days before the fundraising window is over.
Related: Pebble Gets Even Smarter, Rolls Out Interactive Notifications for Android Users
