Misfit, the U.S. maker of wearable fitness trackers, is to be taken over for $260 million by Fossil Group, a watchmaker based in Texas. Fossil sells its own brands, Fossil and Skagen, and it holds licenses for several others, from Adidas to Michael Kors and Diesel. Sonny Vu, chief executive and co-founder of Misfit, is to become president and chief technology officer at Fossil on the closing of the transaction, which the buyer is expecting before the end of the year. Since the launch of its first range in 2013, Misfit has been facing increasingly tough competition, from direct rivals like Fitbit and Jawbone to larger companies such as Xiaomi, which has launched a much cheaper tracker, and Apple with its watch at the higher end of the market. The Fossil group apparently wants to integrate some of Misfit's technology into jewelry and watches, while continuing to make Misfit products and selling them more widely through its distribution network. Fossil, a listed company, reports annual sales of about 50 million watches in 150 countries. Misfit's range of round fitness and sleep trackers, Misfit Shine, have a particularly slick design. Fossil also pointed to Misfit's scalable cloud and app platform, and battery technology. Among its latest partnerships, Misfit secured a deal with Speedo in August to launch a tracker for swimming and other activities, the Speedo Shine, at Apple stores from September. Investors in Misfit included Xiaomi, JD.com and Horizon Ventures.

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