Canadian Smartwatch Entrepreneur Raises Surprising $2.1 Million Thanks To Kickstarter

When Canadian smartwatch entrepreneur Eric Migicovsky launched a Kickstarter campaign he hoped to raise $10,000 from the small-scale funding website, instead his project that hopes to create iPhone and Android based smartphones has raised $2.1 million.

That amount of money amounts to nearly 17,000 watches that start at $115 each with bulk orders costing even less. What might be most amazing is that the campaign was only suppose to last five weeks. Now Eric has moved his company from Waterloo, Ontario to Mountain View, California (home of Google) so they can be closer to the tech sector.

Migicovsky founded Pebble Technology three years ago but failed to woo Silicon Valley investors who are now watching as the company racks up millions of dollars in sales.

As Eric proclaims:

“We tried to raise money, it was impossible. No one really wants to fund hardware projects right now, except for the people that want to buy them.”

Using the watch users are able to access plenty of information including distance and speed rates for cyclists and runners, music controls for iOS and Android systems, the ability to show emails, messages and reminders and more.

The company hopes to start shipping the watches in September but not before they add even more useful features, a nice thank you to their supporters who made the company’s dreams a reality.

As for the future, Migicovsky says his six person team might soon see more engineers as they plan to build even more smartwatch devices.

In the meantime new investors are flocking to Pebble Technology, now it’s just a matter of whether or not they need those investors or can operate on their own.