Wearable Misfit’s $40 Million Funding Round Includes Xiaomi

Misfit, a Burlingame, California-based health and activity wearables maker whose flagship product Shine has drawn favorable reviews, has landed $40 million in Series C funding, bringing the startup’s total capitalization to $63 million in four rounds since its inception in 2011.

What makes this round of funding different is Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, itself a new high-flyer, is now on board as a Misfit partner, participating in the capital infusion with GGV Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Shunwei China Internet Fund, JD.com, Founders Fund and Horizons Ventures.

Misfit said the funding round, which comes nearly a year after a $15.2 Series B round, reflects its commitment to the wearables market in China, a region that currently generates about one-third of the company’s business. That makes not only Xiaomi’s but also JD.com’s investments significant in this funding round because it enables Misfit to broaden its presence in China, said Sonny Vu, Misfit founder and chief executive.

“To us, [China] is probably our favorite market,” Vu told TechCrunch. “It’s a vastly larger market, even when you take into consideration income differences and what not. They have 1.7 or 1.8 billion people, and it’s a super important market for us. China’s always been a very strategic market for us, because we got there early.”

As for Xiaomi, the Misfit investment is its first in a U.S. company, and at initial glance, seems a bit odd given the fact that the Chinese smartphone maker sells its own wearable device, the Mi Band. But Vu said the $13 Mi Band doesn’t compete with Misfit’s $100 Shine wearable device.

“The person who buys the $13 band is very different from the person who buys the $100 Shine,” he said. “I’m not saying price isn’t important, but when it comes to wearables, fashion, design, brand and experience are more significant factors.”

Now, here’s something you don’t hear very often—Vu said Misfit didn’t really need the $40 million, it still has the $15.2 million from the prior investment round. This round, Vu told TechCrunch, was all about making strategic partnerships, which is where JD.com and Xiaomi came in.

“This whole thing with Xiaomi and JD.com was basically done so that we can really amplify our presence in China, and also to accelerate product development,” he said. “We only have 40 people in San Francisco, so there’s only so much we can do every year, and having a partner like Xiaomi who really knows how to scale and get to production quickly, and not just them but the company’s they’re invested in, that’s kind of a big deal for us.”