Jawbone is the private company behind some of tech’s most-coveted items like the Up fitness tracker and the new, pocket-sized Mini Jambox speaker. In fact, Fortune reports the consumer demand for Jawbone’s products is so high the company has raised $93 million in debt financing to ensure it will be able to deliver product in a timely manner.
Although Jawbone is no stranger to venture capital, having raised $200 million in funding from some of Silicon Valley’s most prestigious investors, founder and CEO Hosain Rahman explains why the debt financing, provided by Silver Lake, Fortress Investment Group, J.P. Morgan, and Wells Fargo, is the right move for the company as it experiences “crazy sell-through demand”:
“[Demand has] been faster than anything we’d had before, and equity is not the most efficient way to scale all that…when you build a physical good, there is a lot more that goes into it – ordering materials, manufacturing, delivery… Debt is the most efficient way to finance that.”
But Fortune and AllThingsD separately report Jawbone has also raised $20 million in equity funding from previous investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins.
Jawbone’s newly raised funds will help the company meet the “millions of back-orders” it already has to fill, in addition to the new product orders it will receive during the forthcoming holiday shopping season.
[Image: Flickr user Kazuhiro Keino]
