There are very few Indian firms in the consumer electronics segment that can boast of taking on the might of the international brands. One startup boAt is doing just that. The company makes earphones, speakers and travel chargers capable of challenging the likes of Bose and Apple. The company has now received funding from Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal and the fund infused is Rs 20 crore. Bansal’s BAC Acquisitions has made this investment.
The startup has been founded by Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta and they claim they are able to sell 8,000 units of their products a day. The company has recorded a sales revenue of Rs 100 crore and is confident of doing Rs 500 crore in a couple of years. boAt has established offices in Mumbai and Delhi employing around 45 people.
The founders believe they have run a tight ship without resorting to burning cash as many startups are wont to do. They have chosen debt funding as the better option to raise funds. This funding from Sachin Bansal’s BAC Acquisitions has also come in as venture debt.
The firm claims to have developed its own community of over 1,200,000 'boAtheads'. These are the customers who have reposed their faith in the boAt brand ‘hearables’ as they would like to call their product range a la wearables for the fitness trackers and smartwatches. The startup is getting earphones, speakers etc. contract-manufactured in China as well as in India.
boAt products are being sold online on Flipkart and Amazon and offline with retail stores like Croma and Vijay Sales.
India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) has done a study on the Indian consumer electronics market and expects the demand to reach $400 billion by the year 2014. The figure of consumer electronics production within the country has reached around $60 billion.
Sachin Bansal and his co-founder at Flipkart, Binny Bansal have turned billionaires following the sale of their equity to Walmart last year. Both are now busy trying to help other startups. Ola, Ather Energy, Vogo, Bounce and SigTuple are startups across various business segments that have received funding support from Sachin Bansal.