Not a very Jolla start to 2016 for start-up’s Indiegogo backers

4 Jan 2016

Not all of Jolla's early backers on Indiegogo will get their hands on a coveted tablet

Finnish hardware start-up Jolla has revealed that not all of its crowdfunding backers on Indiegogo will receive one of its coveted tablets.

The tablets, which sport the Sailfish operating system and which were the darlings of the Mobile World Congress last year, were due to be launched in May, but Jolla, founded by ex-Nokia workers, hit financial hard times.

In November, a lead investor pulled out of C round financing and it wasn’t until December that a much-needed investor came on board. In the meantime, Jolla had to temporarily lay off a large portion of its staff.

The company, which harbours ambitions to halt the advance of Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system on mobile devices and become a viable fourth player in the mobile OS space, has yet to fulfill its first batch of 1,000 tablet devices.

But now it appears that not all of the early backers on crowdfunding site Indiegogo are to receive a tablet in the next batch either.

Jolla has raised $2.5m in funding via its Indiegogo campaign, which was oversubscribed by 450pc.

Surprise! You’re not getting a Jolla tablet

Jolla’s head of communications, Juhani Lassila, revealed the bad news in the Jolla blog.

“We don’t have all pieces of the puzzle figured out just yet, but a few things are now certain: we are happy to say that we will be shipping an additional small batch of the Jolla Tablet to early backers during early 2016, targeting to send invitations during January.

“The bad news here is that we are not able to complete the production to fulfill all contributions. In other words, all of our backers will not get a Jolla Tablet.

“However, you can be sure you will not end up empty handed. We might even have some positive surprises in stock for you. But more on that will follow, feel free to speculate!”

What these positive surprises will turn out to be will be anybody’s guess, but the company has confirmed that it is powering ahead with plans to make a new Sailfish-powered smartphone available in India by Spring 2016.

It keeps hinting at other exciting projects too, so let’s hope Jolla’s 2016 turns out to be a jollier affair than 2015.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com