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Music systems are not portable! Hence, as a matter of fact, we all want such devices that can easily be carried with us while traveling. This is the idea that gave rise to headphones and earphones as a portable alternative to the traditional music systems. These devices can easily be carried from one place to another, thereby offering the same feel as the speakers and music systems.
With the emergence of headphones, music lovers, listeners of music, and other professionals can now listen to their favorite tracks, watch the movies of their choice, and talk with their office colleagues, managers, and friends without disturbing others. Though the headphones are being used for quite some time in India, just like they are used in any other part of the world, only a handful of Indian manufacturers can be spotted. Boat is one of the leading players among them, and the brand simply steals the show!
boAt has got an astonishing collection of earphones, earbuds, headphones, and wireless speakers that stands apart due to the quality, affordability, and world-class designs that the company offers. Founded in 2016, boAt is hailed as India's no. 1 earwear audio brand. The company allows users to experience both spirit and energy at the same time.
boAt has been dubbed as the 5th largest wearables brand globally since December 2020.
If you are looking to have a glimpse of the success story of boAt, then StartupTalky has brought you all about boAt, its Business model, Revenue model, Startup story, Funding, Founders and team, Investors, Growth, Competitors, Future Plans, and more.
Boat - Company Highlights
| Company Name | Boat |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | New Delhi, India |
| Sector | Electronics and Fashion |
| Founders | Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta |
| Founded | 2016 |
| Funding | $116.3 mn (December 2021) |
| Valuation | $299.59 mn (INR 2200 Crore) as of April 2021 |
| Revenue | $206.07 mn (INR 1531 crores in FY21) |
| Website | boat-lifestyle.com |
Boat - About
Boat - Startup Story
Boat - Founders, Owners and Team
Boat - Name, Tagline, and Logo
Boat - Business and Revenue Model
Boat - Funding and Investors
Boat - Growth and Revenue
Boat - Startup Challenges
Boat - Acquisitions
Boat - Awards and recognitions
Boat - Competitors
Boat - Future Plans
Boat - About
boAt is an Indian company that markets audio-focused electronic gadgets like wireless speakers, earbuds (Airdopes), wired and wireless headphones and earphones, home audio equipment, premium rugged cables, and a selection of other technological accessories.
Boat - Startup Story
The founders wanted to create a lifestyle brand, which would bring fashionable audio products and accessories for the millennials. Boat is the brainchild of this idea. The company began its journey as a cable manufacturer and seller, which had rapidly expanded its categories to serve over 800,000 customers, as reported in 2020. Boat started as a bootstrapped startup with a capital of around Rs 3000000 lacs that came from the founders.
Souvik Dey
Boat - Founders, Owners and Team
The founders of the Boat are Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta.
Sameer Mehta
Sameer Mehta is the co-founder and the CPO of Boat. He is also the Executive Director of Kores presently. Sameer Mehta started his career at Redwood Interactive and was the owner of the company. Mehta completed his schooling at St. Xavier School, Mumbai, and pursued his bachelor's degree in Commerce from Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics. Sameer also co-founded Imagine Marketing Pvt. Ltd.
Aman Gupta
Aman Gupta is also the co-founder and the CMO of Boat. He pursued his bachelor's degree in Commerce from Delhi University after which he joined The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Gupta also pursued an MBA, General Management and Marketing as an Exchange student at Kellogg School of Management from Northwestern University and then went for an MBA, Finance, and Strategy at the Indian School of Business. Starting as an Assistant Manager with Citi, Aman became the CEO and Co-founder of Advanced Telemedia Pvt Ltd. He then joined as a Senior Management Consultant at KPMG, Gupta then joined as a Sales Director at Harman International. Aman Gupta ultimately co-founded boAt in 2016 with Sameer. He also co-founded Imagine Marketing India, which became the parent of Boat in 2014.
Boat's employee strength is somewhere between 200-500 employees.
Boat Ownership
The majority of the Boat stakes are held by Warburg Pincus, which boasts of holding 36.2% of the company's shares. The boAt co-founders Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta come next in line with 28.1% shares each. Then, comes Fireside Ventures with 3.7% of the shares, followed by Qualcomm Ventures, which has 2.6% stakes. The remaining 1.3% of the Boat stakes are held by Others.
Boat - Name, Tagline, and Logo
The tagline of the company is, 'plug into nirvana'. Nirvana means attaining complete peace and freedom, which the company aims to extend to the audiophiles of the country and other users.
Boat - Business and Revenue Model
The company focused on 3 important market strategies to create a good consumer base -
- Consumer's Needs
- Consumer's Desires
- Consumer's Behaviour Pattern
The founders implemented their research on the products and made the products affordable, durable, and fashionable. boAt focuses on building a customer-brand relationship where it considers the buyers as a member of the Boat family. They also focused a lot on the brand Boat and presented it as an Indian brand. For the marketing of the brand, boAt decided to appoint cricketers and other celebrities as the brand ambassadors of Boat because the Indians are very fond of cricket and Bollywood films. All of these helped the company create a considerable consumer base and become a billion dollar company in India with smart pricing and attractive looks. Boat now claims of selling four products every passing minute.
Some other strategies that helped boAt climb the ladder of success in the audio segment of the Indian market are:
Keeping the customers first - Boat has decided to term its users "boatheads", thereby making them a part of their clan instead of keeping them anonymous.
A range of improvisations - Boat is known for its innovations and improvisations. The company carved out an indestructible cable for the Apple mobile users after discovering the endless complaints of the Apple charging cables. As soon as it sensed the urgency of sports and fall-proof headphones, boAt immediately moved out to build them, which are now available in a variety of colors.
Posing as a lifestyle brand - Boat marked them as a lifestyle brand rather than calling them as a consumer electronics brand.
An ever-expanding catalog of products - Boat products are ever-increasing. From cables to chargers to audio products, boAt is simply bringing new products powered by innovative technologies and awesome designs.
Targeting their customers - The youth and millennials are the target customers of the brand and the company is making sure to impress them at any cost. This is the way the company is speedily steering forth.
Digital marketing - The company has distinctively stayed away from the traditional media, thereby choosing the digital way for marketing. Social media platforms like Facebook and others have solely become the pillars of success for Boat.
The revenues of Boat mainly come through the sale of its products and their delivery charges.
Avantika Bhardwaj
Boat - Funding and Investors
Boat has raised a total amount of $116.3 million in funding over 6 funding rounds.
| Date | Transaction Name | Money Raised | Lead Investor |
|---|---|---|---|
| April 16, 2021 | Series B | $6.68 million | Qualcomm Ventures |
| January 5, 2021 | Series B | $100 million | Warburg Pincus |
| September 1, 2020 | Debt Financing | $3.34 million | InnoVen Capital |
| July 26, 2019 | Debt Financing | $2.13 million | InnoVen Capital |
| July 17, 2019 | Debt Financing | $2.67 million | Navi Technologies |
| May 3, 2018 | Venture Round | $802K | Fireside Ventures |
boAt is eyeing IPO early next year. The company is currently looking to raise up to $500 Mn (Rs 3500 crores) at a valuation of $1.4 bn and then list itself between March and June 2022. Boat becomes the first Indian D2C brand to file for a Rs 2,000 crore-IPO, which plans to file its DRHP with SEBI in the last week of January 2022, as per the reports dated January 18, 2022. According to the sources close to the company, Boat is looking to have a fresh issue of shares and an offer for sale, both of which would be worth Rs 1,000 crore each.
Boat - Growth and Revenue
The company retails at Croma outlets and in Myntra, Amazon, Jabong, and Flipkart. Quality performance of the Boat products has helped the company a lot in achieving the growth it has witnessed over the years.
Here's a quick glance at some growth milestones of Boat:
- Boat has gathered 800,000+ customers within a short span of 4 years
- It claims to add one boAthead to its family within every 3 minutes that pass
- The company sells 4 units every minute and over 6,000 units each day
- boAt audio was declared as the leading brand in the earwear category with 27.3% of the market shares
- The business has been profitable for 5+ years straight
- Boat has its products in 5,000+ retail stores and is supported by more than 20 distributors
boAT posted a 2X growth in its revenues, which grew from Rs 704 crore in FY20 to Rs 1,531 crore in FY21. The revenue from operations of boAT was recorded at Rs 1511.7 crore in FY21 while its other income recorded a revenue of Rs 19.57 crore. The EBIDTA of boAT was reported to be Rs 127.1 crore during FY21.
If we break up boAT revenues, we would find that the company:
- Earned Rs 947.35 crore from the sale of earphones and headphones
- Mopped up Rs 297.40 crore from the sale of wireless speakers
- Earned Rs 94.92 crore from the sale of wired earphones and headphones
- It further obtained revenues close to Rs 172.03 crore from the sale of other accessories including cables, chargers, and more
Boat increased its profits by 61% to Rs 78.6 crore in FY21 from Rs 48.85 crore, which is witnessed in FY20. However, boAt's expenditure ballooned 122%. It was last recorded at Rs 637.5 crore in FY20, which increased to Rs 1,420 crore in FY21.
Chayanika Goswami
Boat - Startup Challenges
Boat started as a bootstrapped company in the initial years with a funding of around Rs 3 lacs from the founders and had to struggle initially for raising funds. Apart from this, the company faces numerous challenges day in and day out when it comes to manufacturing trendy products at affordable rates and bringing them to the market that is already packed with equally able competitors.
Boat - Acquisitions
boAt has acquired 2 companies - Tagg and Cove IoT. The latter is a recent acquisition made by Boat on January 15, 2022. The acquisition of the Singapore-based smart wearables IoT (internet-of-things) product development startup will help Boat enhance the development of its wearables with the help of KaHa Pte Ltd's (Cove IoT) innovative concepts and design.
boAt was set to acquire Delhi-based consumer electronics brand, Tagg Digital, according to the latest reports. Though the talks regarding the same were going on for around two months, recently the contours of the deal have been finalized. Furthermore, it has also been confirmed as part of the deal that the co-founders of the company and the Tagg Digital team would be joining boAt after the completion of the deal. The brand finally acquired Tagg on June 9, 2021.
| Acquiree Name | Date | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Cove IoT | January 15, 2022 | - |
| TAGG | June 9, 2021 | - |
Boat - Awards and recognitions
Boat was awarded and recognized on numerous occasions by a list of organizations, here's a look at some of the most prominent awards and recognition of the brand:
- The company was declared as the "number 1 brand for truly wireless and earwear in India in 2020"
- It was noted as the "5th largest wearable brand in the world in 2020"
- Boat boasts of being the official audio partner for 6 Indian Premier League (IPL) teams in 2021
- It has partnered with a wide range of celebrities and cricketers from Hardik Pandya to Diljit Dosanjh and Jacqueline Fernandez.
Boat - Competitors
The top competitors of the Boat are Gonoise, Mivi and Skullcandy.
Gonoise
Gonoise is the biggest rival of Boat. It is headquartered at Gurgaon, Haryana, India and was founded in 2014. Gonoise competes in the electronic equipment industry.
Mivi
Mivi is one of the biggest rivals of Boat. It is headquartered in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, India and was founded in 2015. Mivi also operates in the electronic equipment industry.
Skullcandy
Skullcandy is also one of the top competitors of Boat. It is headquartered in Park City, Utah and was founded in 2003. Skullcandy also works in the electronics industry.
Boat - Future Plans
The company believes that there is always a trend of buying earphones along with the new smartphones. Boat finds this concept to be a channel of success for them. According to the reports, the major phone makers are in the process of stitching new relations with audio companies. For example - Samsung has got JBL and Harman, Apple has Beats, and so on. These manufacturers are attracting consumers with hot deals so that the users don't buy earphones or headphones separately.
'That is where the market is moving', says Aman Gupta.
Video consumption would be a demand driver in the coming future.
Boat is currently aiming to provide more and more products to satisfy the increasingly high demand for technological gadgets and bring them at affordable rates to its users with style! The brand wants to help the Indians get all the quality technological devices that they need from the homegrown brand Boat, without letting them rely on the other foreign brands.
Boat - FAQs
What is boAt?
boAt is an Indian startup that manufactures and distributes electronic gadgets. boAt is founded by Aman Gupta and Samer Mehta and is hailed as one of India's favourite audio and wearable brands today,
When did Boat Company start?
The Boat company was started in 2016 by Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta.
Who are the founders of Boat?
The founders of the Boat are Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta.
Is Boat an Indian company?
Boat is an Indian Company. It is headquartered in New Delhi, India
How much is Boat's valuation?
Boat's valuation is around Rs 2200 crore as of 2021, as of April 16, 2021.
Source :- https://startuptalky.com/ Author :- Purbalee Dutta Date :-March 07, 2022 at 01:21PM