The D2C electronics company boAt has raised INR 500 Cr (about $61 Mn) from an existing stakeholder, a Warburg Pincus subsidiary, and a new investor Malabar Investments.
The investment will give the company the opportunity to advance its goals of achieving leadership in the smartwatch market, scaling up its operations across channels and geographies (both inside and outside India), further solidifying its category leadership in audio, enhancing its R&D and design capabilities, and supporting the creation of a domestic manufacturing ecosystem under the Make-in-India initiative, as per reported by Business World.
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Aman Gupta, Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer, of boAt, said “We have established clear leadership in our core personal audio category and are the number two player globally in earwear. It is a matter of great pride that a brand that was born in India is now ranked amongst the top brands in the world. We now want to make smartwatches our second core and will replicate the boAt digital playbook to become global leaders in this category as well. The new funding will allow us to invest significantly to disrupt the smart watches spaces with more innovative products. And we are thrilled that investors continue to have strong conviction and confidence in the boAt story”.
boAt only recently made its way into the smartwatch market. boAt has made great advances toward creating a health and wellness wearables ecosystem, establishing itself as one of the top brands in the market, and expanding into this rapidly expanding industry.
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Sameer Mehta, Co-founder & Chief Product Officer, of boAt, added: “We are very excited about the potential of smartwatches. The market today is in the early stages of evolution and most players don’t have control over the end-to-end stack to offer compelling features to consumers. There is a significant opportunity to build the category and launch more distinctive and technologically advanced products. Through boAt labs (our 120-person in-house R&D team) and our acquisition of KaHa Technologies, (a world-class wearables technology and IoT platform, with 64 patents and patent applications), we are developing the next generation of products. These products will provide richer features and deeper insights to consumers on their health and wellness to enable them to lead more active and fulfilling lifestyles”.
After five years, boAt has established itself as an essential component of cultural discussions among the younger generation, lifestyle influencers, audiophiles, and many other categories. boAt is now a supporter of independent thought, risk-taking, and unrestricted investigation. boAt wants to give its audience more than simply a product; it is motivated by an intense love of music and an instinct for invention.
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About boAt
boAt launched its journey in 2016. Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta, the company’s co-founders, both recognised the enormous gaps in the Indian audio and wearable markets and established boAt with the goal of fusing the worlds of fashion and consumer electronics.
