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Comment by Timothee | Hacker News Reader

I'm just learning that they're renting a billboard along 101 in San Francisco: http://www.businessinsider.com/pebble-buys-san-francisco-bil...

According to some comments on Business Insider, such a billboard is… well, pricey, and they would get the KickStarter money only after May 18th. (I haven't confirmed that part)

Could one speculate from there that they have been raising money from yet-to-be-announced traditional investors? Considering their new position (i.e. demonstrated demand), it wouldn't be that surprising.

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Pebble is not their first watch. They've already sold a first generation of watches (http://www.getinpulse.com/) and I would speculate they are likely using the proceeds from these sales.

That comment is inaccurate. A billboard on 101 costs something like $10k-20k/month. If it was remnant inventory, it could be even less than $10k for that month.

Sure, I can speculate:

They could very well be Factoring[1].

Since the Kickstarter payout is pretty much guaranteed at such-and-such date, they could quite easily "unlock" (factor) some of their future Accounts Receivable for a small percentage discount.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factoring_(finance)

One thing I hate about finance is how every little trick is named by borrowing the name from an existing concept in mathematics which only barely relates to the financial trickery.

That Wikipedia page says the practice originated before 1400, so it could be that mathematics stole the word from finance.

Are you saying Mathematicians did not know how to factor before 1400? hmmm ;)

No, but I bet they used a different word.

A factor, from the Latin "he who does" (from Latin facit, to do, parallel to agent, from Latin agens), is a person who professionally acts as the representative of another individual -- also from Wikipaedia.

Looks like it was (English-speaking) mathematicians that borrowed the term.

Not to mention the million dollar check they wrote for components...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper...

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