Dash Navigation can't find its way, lays off two thirds of employees

Erick Schonfeld

Erick Schonfeld is a technology journalist and the executive producer of DEMO. He is also a partner at bMuse, a product incubator in New York City. Schonfeld is the former Editor in Chief of TechCrunch. At TechCrunch, he oversaw the editorial content of the site, helped to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produced TCTV shows, and wrote daily... → Learn More

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

Dash Navigation is getting out of the hardware business and cutting 55 jobs, or 65% of its workers. The startup, which is backed by both Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, makes the Dash Express car GPS device. This is a network-connected GPS that pools the location and speeds of all nearby Dash owners to give them back real-time traffic reports. It also supports geoRSS feeds, and other GPS apps.

Despite its novel features (I am a big fan of the device) and the $71 million the company has raised, going into the hardware is business looks like it was a wrong turn. Dash will now pursue a strategy of partnering with other device manufacturers, including cell phone-makers, to add its software to their devices.

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