Do you remember the time when we purchased earbuds or earphones in a local market? The time was interesting, wasn’t it? The earphones that we purchase are either too defective or too expensive. That time, the earphones which were completed 6 months ago were something of a good brand. But, there was no guarantee for it. Time after time, the companies eventually remove the earphones from the phones, and the customers are left behind. There was a huge demand, but no supply. Noticing that, 2 adults Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta started boAt, and this blog, we will understand about BoAt success story and how they eventually made its global dominance.
Know More About BoAt
Imagine Marketing Services Pvt. Ltd., operating under the name boAt, is an Indian consumer electronics company established in November 2013 by Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta. Within a short span of time, it has emerged as the market leader for multi-category consumer electronics with notable achievements by 2022, primarily with wearables. BoAt success story, boAt brings an enormous portfolio of products-from earphones and headphones to smartwatches, power banks, and a number of mobile accessories-producing significant influences on quality audio and innovative features.
Thus far, the brand’s milestones have been impressive-most prominently, a $900,000 venture round led by Fireside Ventures in April 2018, a $100 million Series B round led by Warburg Pincus in January 2021, and a follow-on $6.68 million Series B round by Qualcomm Ventures in April 2021. In October 2022, boAt raised a $60.64 million convertible note from Malabar Investment Advisors and Warburg Pincus. More recently, the company launched a smart ring featuring health tracking abilities in July 2023 and they are planning for the Initial public offering or IPO in 2025-2026 tenure.
BoAt Financials
Talking about the financials of the company, its revenue from operations significantly rose from 7 billion rupees in 2019 to 40 billion rupees in 2023. Talking about the assets and the liabilities, then it significantly rose from 2020 to 2023, from 1.8 billion rupees worth of assets in 2020 to 21 billion rupees in 2023, and their current liabilities eventually rose from 999 million from 2020 to 15 billion as of 2023. Their net profit eventually changes from 495 million rupees as of 2020 to 1 billion rupees loss in 2023.
Leadership Team
Let’s deep dive in their leaders team
- Sameer Mehta: Whole Time Director & Chief Executive Officer
- Aman Gupta: Whole Time Director & Chief Marketing Officer
- Vivek Gambhir: Non-Executive Director, Chairman
- Anish Saraf: Non-Executive Director
- Purvi Sheth: Independent Non-Executive Director
- Aashish Kamat: Independent Non-Executive Director
- Anand Ramamoorthy: Independent Non-Executive Director
- Deven Waghani: Independent Non-Executive Director
Aman Gupta: The Founder
Aman Gupta was born on 4th March 1982. He is an Indian entrepreneur and an angel investor, closely associated. With being one of the co-founders who also co-founded Salil Dalal and Aayush Lovern together. Salil Dalal is one of the co-founders who served as a Chief Marketing Officer at boAt Lifestyle, that is, a leading electronics brand. Aman attended Delhi Public School for his education and graduated with a degree in Bachelor of Commerce from Shaheed Bhagat Singh College. While simultaneously following his MBA from Northwestern University and finally completed his other MBA from the Indian School of Business.
Gupta began his career at Citi and KPMG and co-founded boAt in 2016 with Sameer Mehta. He is a regular judge at Shark Tank India and has been seen as a guest on several shows. Gupta has been married to Priya Dagar since 2008, and the couple has two daughters. His various accolades also include the Businessworld Young Entrepreneur Award and Economic Times’ 40 Under 40.
Aman Gupta Net Worth
Their net worth is estimate to be around 720 crores as of 2024, mostly by the shares of the company whose valuation eventually rose to 10500 crore as of 2024. But, there is not only his company which contributed to his net worth, other investments include Shiprocket, WickedGud, 10 club, Freecultr, Bummer, and Skippi Ice Pops.
BoAt Acquisitions
In 2022, the firm acquired KaHa Pte Ltd of Singapore, an end-to-end smart IoT product development company, to further intensify the development of its IoT-enabled wearables. KaHa has a headquarters in Singapore, a software development center in Bangalore. And a hardware center in China under the registered brand, COVE, offering the full smart IoT wearables platform that allows brands to release a spectrum of smart products.
KaHa’s vision is to integrate wearables into the daily lives of people while making them valuable, secure, and entertaining. This strategy propels their R&D strategy, ensuring effective entry to the market and delivering differentiated value to consumers through in-house capabilities from design to finished product. The company will also be well aware of the end customers, as all its products are centered on exhaustive user research. KaHa also has demonstrated a proven history of IoT device building. And offers a technology-driven platform featuring proprietary AI and machine learning capabilities. Clarivate Innovation Award has been received by the company for the consecutive years of 2020 and 2021.
Another consumer electronics startup from Mumbai, boAt is finalizing the acquisition of Delhi-based Tagg Digital, sources say. Such talks have been in progress for two months. Found by Rohit Dhingra, Amitesh Bharadwaj, and Saurav Prakash, Tagg specializes in making wireless earphones, smartwatches, and speakers and has been bootstrapper since its inception five years ago.
According to reports, the deal is worth between $5-8 million. At the moment, this will be the basis for which Tagg’s team will join boAt after being acquired. boAt is the market leader in the TWS headphone and Bluetooth speaker market. Counterpoint said it had 28% market share in the TWS segment. The brand has also picked up momentum as a D2C player, supported by “Make in India” initiatives and an overall shift away from Chinese brands.
Last month, boAt secured $100 million funding from Warburg Pincus to upgrade its R&D and local manufacturing capabilities; the company has also announced quite strong profitability, with operating revenue growing threefold in FY20. This acquisition of Tagg Digital will further cement the company’s position in the market.
Controversy Surrounding BoAt
But, the company eventually did not survive, if there is no controversy. Well, The Forbes report states that consumer electronics brand boAt has faced a data breach, with the personal information of 7.5 million customers seemingly up for sale on the dark web. The leaked data includes around 2GB of sensitive details such as names, email IDs, customer IDs, and contact numbers available for purchase online for as low as ₹180. Hacktivist “ShopifyGUY” has taken responsibility for the boAt breach which has affected the smartwatch and audio product lines of the company.
BoAt success story, Another controversy of the company boAt is that the advertisement put out by the company has already opened up controversy among Apple fanboys who criticized the advertisement for having compared it directly to the AirPods of Apple. Indian brand Electronics has been in controversy over the posting of a social media advertisement featuring EarPods alongside Apple’s AirPods. The said company is an earphone and smartwatches brand. For example, it used the famous Apple tagline but twisted and modified “Think Different” into “Think Better” with the urging tagline of “Don’t be a fanboy, be a boAthead.” boAt claims earbuds to be able to offer much superior quality bass and Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) at much cheaper prices than AirPods with a price tag of ₹899 against ₹12,900.
The ad elicited mixed reactions following over 60,000 views with comments criticizing the ad and boAt’s products. Most users felt the comparison is a slight and deceived people, while others made memes from the ad. Responding to a post regarding an ad by one user, boAt apologized and offered its help and support, but the backlash has continuously gained momentum and fueled debate online. Still, the brand portrays endurance in its global sales.
Conclusion
Despite the controversies, the boat still has a market share of 29.7% in the wearables market in India and 19% in the smartwatches as of 2023. It still has growing onerall in the wearables and the watches market. Also, they are recently going for an IPO in the year 2025, probably mid 2025, although except for an issue size of 2000 crore, nothing is announce.
