Misfit raises $15.2M for its next product

By Aditi Pai
05:35 am
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TopazShineMisfit Wearables raised $15.2 million in a round led by Hong Kong-based Li Ka-shing's Horizons Ventures, according to TechCrunch. Former investors Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Paypal co-founder Max Levchin and incTANK also participated in the round. This brings Misfit's total funding to $23.8 million, including their Indiegogo campaign raise.

A few days ago, the company added Android support for its activity tracker, Shine, after dropping support in May. Shine tracks a user's walking, cycling, and swimming, and syncs wirelessly with the companion app. It also added two new colors for its Shine -- which initially just came in grey -- champagne and topaz.

Misfit Wearables CEO Sonny Vu told TechCrunch the funding will go to "new, yet to be launched" products that will come out next year and that the company is developing other wearable products. Vu didn't say what Misfit's followup to Shine will be, but in the past he's suggested the company plans to eventually develop medical products.

"We haven't talked a lot about metabolic syndrome and things like addressing obesity and diabetes through our kinds of products, and indeed we're not a medical device maker, at least not yet," Vu, who in the past founded diabetes connected glucometer company Agamatrix, told MobiHealthNews in an interview earlier this year. "We wanted to start with consumer products and making those an integrated part of our DNA. But then, we didn't spend the last 12 years doing medical devices for nothing. So we will definitely do something in that space."

Along with the Android addition, Misfit announced new social features for its iOS app, including a leaderboard that allows Shine users to compete with one another on activity, and a profile and social feed to share milestones and achievements. The update also added push notifications that tell users when friends are about to catch up to them on the leaderboard.

Misfit Shine launched a year ago through its Indiegogo campaign, after hiring former Apple CEO John Sculley as an investor and co-founder and raising a $7.6 million initial round of funding with participation by high-profile investors like Vinod Khosla.

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