Wearables company Jawbone facing liquidation

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital among the big names burned by $900m Jawbone failure

Jawbone, the technology company that raised more than $900m in funding to support a shift into wearable devices, is facing liquidation, according to a report from The Information.

The consumer electronics company, founded in 1999 as Aliph, had competed with FitBit and numerous other health technology gadget companies, and was once valued at as much as $3bn.

Despite being founded in 1999, it underwent a series of venture capital fundings between 2008 and 2011 in a bid to shift into fast-growth consumer markets, such as speakers for MP3 players and smartphones, and wearable fitness trackers.

However, a person close to the company said that it had begun liquidation proceedings after years of financial pressures, despite having raised more than $900m from high-profile investors and receiving backing from big names in the technology industry.

Jawbone's co-founder and CEO Hosain Rahman has already founded a new company, which will make health-related hardware and software services, as well as servicing existing Jawbone devices, The Information reported.

Many Jawbone employees had already moved to the new company earlier this year, while it has actively been searching for new recruits online via websites such as Glassdoor. Its website, meanwhile, hadn't been properly updated since 2015.

But everything appears to have fallen apart over the past year, with customers complaining about deteriorating levels of customer service - including a complete stop to its social media channels. Senior executives, meanwhile, have fled the company, and it has been involved in a legal dispute with rival Fitbit over trade secrets and patent infringement claims.

The company, which had initially focused on audio technology, had reportedly struggled with product failures, while contractors have complained about late payment.

The downfall of Jawbone won't come as a surprise to one person: back in 2015, the then CIO of international health club operator Virgin Active, Andy Caddy, said that fitness bands from the likes of Fitbit and Jawbone wouldn't be around in two years' time.

At the time, fitness bands were all the rage, but Caddy said that the high-end bands were already on the verge of disappearing.

"I've seen the fitness band market evolve over the last few years but I don't think it's going to last much longer in terms of the $100 bands," he told Computing.