In an analysis of startups conducted for Business Insider by startup insight platform Mattermark, Jawbone was one of the “unicorns” – companies with private-market valuations of greater than $1 billion – observed to have the greatest risk of failure.
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Jawbone, the consumer electronics and wearable products specialist out of San Francisco, recently laid off 15 percent of its global workforce according to a report from TechCrunch. As part of this same layoff, the company is shuttering its NY office, which concentrated on the marketing of the company.
The struggling fitness-tracker manufacturer Jawbone just suffered another jab.
The company is known for its line of Jambox speakers and Up fitness trackers.
A company spokesperson told TechCrunch, “Jawbone’s success over the past 15 years has been rooted in its ability to evolve and grow dynamically in a rapidly scaling marketplace”. The new Up3 fitness tracker, released in May, received less-than-stellar reviews. However, it has felt the competition this past year, both from the pure play type wearables companies and the popular hardware companies that have made a move into the wearables space.
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As Buzzfeed notes, Jawbone wasn’t even in the top five wearable vendors, which included Fitbit, Apple, Xiamoi, Garmin, and Samsung.
