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"Pebble, the company that successfully funded an e-paper smartwatch on Kickstarter last year, announced today that it has raised a $15 million Series A round of funding from Charles River Ventures.\r\n\r\nPebble says it will use the investment to hire new staff for its software engineering team, expand the open development platform behind the Pebble smartwatch and also ramp up production to meet the growing demand from customers.\r\n\r\nTo coincide with the announcement, Pebble has also updated the SDK for its smart watch, now called PebbleKit, to enable two-way communication between the hardware and third-party apps.\u00A0Until now, most apps have been restricted to the watch\u2019s basic functions,\u00A0but today's update means\u00A0that developers can now work on new \u2018watchapps\u2019 that both send and receive information from an Android or iOS device.\r\n\r\n\u201CWatchapps can now be built to receive weather or traffic information, act as remote controls for a phone or internet-connected device, or display Bitcoin prices,\u201D the company suggested in a press release today.\r\n\r\nA quick check on the company\u2019s updated Kickstarter page also hints at the possibility of check-in apps similar to Foursquare and Yelp, as well as multiplayer games and even a Bitcoin price tracker.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s not all smooth sailing, however. Developers that want to build apps with two-way communication via an iPhone will need to hand it over to Pebble before it can be uploaded to the App Store.\r\n\r\nThis is because the company is now part of the \u2018Made for iPhone\u2019 program, a requirement for all new hardware that interacts with iOS apps. \u201CWe understand that this is a major annoyance. We've got a solution in mind for this problem, and it's on our to-do list,\u201D the company said.\r\n\r\nPebble is also announcing the Pebble Sports API today, which offers deeper integration with third-party sports or fitness tracker apps. RunKeeper, a fitness-tracking app for Android and iOS, announced support for Pebble two weeks ago but the new API should encourage more high-profile sports app developers to join the ecosystem.\r\n\r\nIn other news, the orange version of the Pebble smartwatch should be shipping to backers next week. Which is always cool.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s been rumored that Apple, Microsoft and Google are all working on their own respective smart watch designs. Regardless of what they produce, Pebble will always be known as the first company to produce a working model that the public wanted.\u00A0The renewed drive for third-party developer support should mean that the hardware continues to evolve over time. The funding from\u00A0Charles River Ventures is also notable because it's one of the first Kickstarter projects - aside from OUYA - to attract a significant amount of VC funding. With an extra $15 million in the coffers, it also leaves Pebble to focus on what's important - getting units to backers and on store shelves."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2013/05/16/pebble-grabs-15m-and-launches-pebblekit-for-two-way-communication-with-ios-and-android-apps/>