BoAt, a wearables firm, postponed its planned public share offering on Friday in favour of raising $60 million (500 crore) from private investors in response to ongoing worries about the unpredictable stock market.

According to Imagine Marketing Pvt. Ltd, a manufacturer of BoAt smartwatches and audio equipment, the round included existing investment Warburg Pincus and new partner Malabar Investments.

Through its affiliate, South Lake Investment, Warburg Pincus participated in a private issue of preference shares.

Under the condition of anonymity, a corporate executive stated that the transaction valued the company at about $1.4 billion, which is the same as what it was anticipated to ask for in the first public offering.

The money will be used by Imagine Marketing to grow their smartwatch category across channels and markets in India and overseas.

Additionally, it intends to expand local production, strengthen its audio category, and improve research and design capabilities.

In order to raise 2,000 crore, the Mumbai-based company submitted its draught initial share offer documents to the markets regulator in January. However, the business put its intentions for listing on the stock market on hold due to challenging market conditions, similar to several other startups like PharmEasy and Droom Technologies.

“Presently, we are focusing  to make smartwatches our second most priority and we shall follow the series of BoAt strategies to completely rule this industry. The new capital would enable the company to make considerable investments in order to compete in the smart watch industry with more innovative and influential products.” said by Aman Gupta, Co-founder and CMO at BoAt.

In collaboration with a number of top electronic manufacturing services (EMS) providers in India, including Dixon, with whom it has also established a manufacturing joint venture, the company is also diversifying its manufacturing.

It has already entered into similar agreements with well-known international businesses like Qualcomm (which is also a shareholder in boAt), Dolby and Dirac to produce higher-quality products more affordably.

In FY22, the company reported revenues of around 3,000 crore. This year, it made top six large hires with the ambitious IPO aspirations in mind. BoAt received an undisclosed sum from Qualcomm Ventures in April 2021. It acquired 735 crore from Warburg Pincus a year earlier.

The Company:

BoAt is manufacturer of audio equipments. Imagine Marketing Limited is the creator of this business. Delhi, India is where its corporate office is located. In 2014, Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta started this company. Before developing its own platform, the company was an Amazon India-focused brand for online shopping.

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