On Wednesday, Headphones maker boAt said it has raised $100 million from private equity firm Warburg Pincus at a valuation of $300 million.
The company said that the capital raised will enable it to strengthen its market position, expand the product portfolio and research & development capabilities. The boAt is also looking ahead to start manufacturing in India under the Make in India initiative.
“The investment is great news for not only the company but also for the entire direct-to-consumer (D2C) sector. The investment has come at the right time as we make efforts to ramp up our manufacturing and global supply chain,” said Aman Gupta, co-founder of boAt.
The product portfolio of boAt includes headphones, earphones, smartwatches, speakers, travel chargers and premium cables.
The boAt, founded by Gupta and Sameer Mehta in 2016, started off as a seller of audio products such as earphones, headphones, soundbars and speakers, but has now positioned itself as a lifestyle brand for millennials and expanded into ‘wearables’ last quarter (in November) with the launch of its first smartwatch Boat Storm. Currently, it has approximately 150 employees working at its offices in Delhi and Mumbai. In 2018, it raised Rs 6 crore in funding from Fireside Ventures. Till now, Fireside has invested Rs 21 crore in the company.
“The electronics that go into most of these products and contribute 30-40% of the product costs are not made in India. These manufacturers are in Taiwan and China. Besides, we are behind China in the mechanicals also by 5-7 years but hopefully within the next 1-2 years, with the scale that boAt has, we will invest thoroughly in this and bring up that ecosystem where we will be on a par with China over the next 2-3 years,” said Mehta.
