Misfit Shine is a wearable activity tracker that successfully raised funding on Indiegogo in early 2013. The company went the crowdfunding route not for the money but for the marketing exposure for the sleek device. The product closed its crowdfunding campaign with just shy of 8000 backers and over $800,000 in pre-orders. Shine went on to deliver only a bit late to backers and then quickly pushed their product into retail outlets across the globe.
Founded by entrepreneur Sonny Vu, Misfit had plenty of funding prior the crowdfunding Shine. In fact Misfit was one the earlier, highly successful campaigns that leveraged the social nature, and marketing power, of crowdfunding. The company has since pushed forward, working with Pebble Watch, and becoming the most successful activity tracker in China.
Today via Reuters, it was revealed that Misfit has received a $40 million investment led by big names Xiaomi, JD.com, GVV Capital and Shunwei. Xiaomi is known for its stylish smartphones that undercut both the Apple iPhone an Samsung products in pricing. In a few short years Xiaomi has become one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world as it has its sites on challenging current king iPhone.
The investment in Misfit is indicative of the growing interest in China based capital going global in search of diversified opportunity. Moov, another crowdfunded fitness device, received additional funding from Banyan Capital this past October. Tile, an item finder device described as the “worlds largest lost and found” received a $13 million investment led by China based GVV and Tencent in October as well.
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