The New York-based private equity firm Warburg Pincus invests $100 million into India-born audio product startup boAt. The investment came in a growth round to help boAt strengthen its dominance in the homegrown market and expand its manufacturing capabilities in the country. boAt will invest the raised fund to widen its research and development capabilities, localize its manufacturing and expand product portfolio.

Known for its budget-friendly headphones, boAt is climbing the growth ladder faster due to the pandemic that homebound users looking for solutions to aid their entertainment and work from home. The third quarter of 2020 saw the Delhi-based startup capture a market share of 32.4 percent in the earwear category in India, reported IDC data. An International Data Corporation report put boAt as the fifth largest in the global wearable market, only behind Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei and Samsung.

“The investment is great news for not only the company but for the entire D2C (direct-to-consumer) sector. It has come at the right time as we make efforts to ramp up our manufacturing and global supply chain,” Aman Gupta, Co-Founder of boAt, said in a statement.

Till date, boAt has raised around Rs.670 million in various rounds of funding from several investors. Last year, the company raised Rs.25 crore from Innoven Capital, while Navi Technologies is a debt investor and Fireside Ventures is its equity investor.