Pebble

Silicon Valley venture capitalists are reportedly turning down requests from smartwatch maker Pebble for funding, leading to speculation that the company may be struggling following the launch of the Apple Watch.

Citing sources close to the company, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday that Pebble instead obtained a $5 million loan and another $5 million line of credit from a bank, after efforts to secure venture capital funding were denied.

After revealing that it would be launching new hardware and software this year and teasing an announcement with a countdown timer on its website last week, Pebble is today announcing the Pebble Time, its third-generation smartwatch. The Time features an all new design and a color e-paper display, a first for Pebble. It also has a microphone for responding to incoming messages and recording voice notes.

Anyone who owns a Pebble smartwatch will now be able to reply and act on Android Wear notifications they see from their device, the hardware maker has announced.

The smartwatch comes with its own operating system, but in December, Pebble announced that a beta version of its software would include support for Android Wear, the mobile operating system Google has developed for wearables. At that time, the company said that "if you can do it with Android Wear, you can do it with Pebble."

Pebble may be an old hand at the smartwatch game, but it still has a lot to prove.

The Pebble Steel was CNET's favorite smartwatch of 2014, but with the upcoming Apple Watch, new Android Wear watches and tons of newcomers like Swatch entering the fray, the startup will have a tougher time standing out. Those heightened competitive pressures underscore the increasingly crowded area of wearable devices -- an area that consumers have yet to warm up to.