boAt secures investment from Qualcomm Ventures – its second fundraising in 2021 after bagging $100 million from Warburg Pincus

• boAt, a homegrown audio accessory company, has announced investment from Qualcomm Ventures for an undisclosed amount.
• This is boAt’s second fundraising in 2021 – it had raised $100 million earlier this year from Warburg Pincus.
• Analysts expect boAt’s revenue to double to ₹10 billion in FY21 from ₹5 billion a year before – driven by an increase in order value during the COVID-19 pandemic.

boAt, one of the leading audio accessories makers in India, announced that it has received investment from Qualcomm Ventures, which is the venture capital arm of US-based chipmaker Qualcomm.

This is boAt’s second fundraising in 2021 – earlier in January it had secured an investment of $100 million (approx. ₹730 crore) from Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm. Prior to that, it had raised ₹20 crore from Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal.

The company declined to disclose the amount of investment from Qualcomm Ventures.

boAt is looking to boost its Research & Development (R&D) as well as manufacturing capabilities with this investment.

“As boAt enters the next phase of growth and innovation, we look forward to building a relationship with Qualcomm to deepen our R&D capabilities and further augment our efforts to manufacture products in India,” said Sameer Mehta, co-founder of boAt.

The company has an R&D facility in Bengaluru. In the past year, it says it has doubled its employee strength while also expanding into new categories like smartwatches. Apart from this, it also launched 20 new audio products in the last year.

“We believe this relationship will contribute to greater technology collaboration, quicker deployment, and refining of product portfolio across price points,” Mehta added.

Analysts expect two times growth in revenue

boAt has been attracting investments not just because it is a theoretically interesting prospect for investors, but also because it has the numbers to back it up.

In FY20, boAt recorded ₹5 billion in revenue. Analysts expect this to double in FY21.

According to a HDFC Securities report dated December 17, 2020, boAt’s revenue for the financial year 2020-21 is expected to double to ₹10 billion, as the average order value has increased from ₹450 to ₹750.

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