Laforge Optical pulls its stylish smart glasses Indiegogo campaign

Following a ridiculously successful response, Laforge Optical has decided to yank the Indiegogo campaign for its new Icis Smart Specs today.

Wait, what? Why on earth would they do that — especially after raising a decent amount of cash less than a week after the campaign went live?

Well, it turns out Laforge is raising a seed round from a private investor thanks to all the attention surrounding Icis. The company didn’t say exactly how much money it’s getting, but I’m guessing its at least $80,000 since that’s what the funding goal for the Indiegogo campaign was set at.

As for the product, Icis smart glasses allow you to view notifications directly through your lenses rather than via smartphones. It also allows you to record video, snap photos, and record audio. As we previously described, Icis is basically a much more “stylish” version of Google’s Google Glass smart glasses.

“Although the campaign has been shut down for the time being, Laforge plans to make pre-orders available to those who may have missed out. This offering will be made public in the near future and the estimated shipping dates provided during the Indiegogo campaign will not be affected,” Laforge said in a statement to VentureBeat today.

All original backers will get a full refund and gain access to special pricing when the Icis specs do make their consumer sales debut. Initially, Laforge intended to use crowd funding to buy prototype devices, and its Indiegogo campaign was definitely geared toward the developer community.

It’s sad to se a hot crowdfunding campaign like this get yanked before reaching its goal, but I think Laforge made the right move. There have been a few other instances where I see a crowdfunded project gain “traditional” funding afterward, and it always makes me wonder if the company really needs the money it previously raised from the community.