The parent company of audio equipment and wearables brand boAt has raised $60 million from Warburg Pincus affiliates, its existing shareholders, private equity funds and new investor Malabar Investments. The company delayed plans to go public.

Imagine Marketing said the funding would be used for the company’s plan to lead the smartwatch category in India, strengthening its position in audio and R&D and supporting local manufacturing under the government’s “Make in India” initiative.

“We now want to make the smartwatch our second core and will replicate the boAt digital playbook to become the global leader in this category,” said new boAt co-founder and chief marketing officer Aman Gupta in a company statement. Funding Will allow us to make significant investments to disrupt the smartwatch space with more innovative products.

The company has partnerships with Qualcomm, Dolby and Dirac and added smartwatches to its product list. It diversifies manufacturing through partnerships such as a joint venture with Dixon.

Most of the boAt’s products are produced in India: 1 million per month. The company said it plans to bring the boAt brand overseas.

“We are very excited about the potential of smartwatches. Today’s market is in the early stages of development, and most players have no control over the end-to-end stack to deliver compelling features to consumers. Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, boAt Sameer Mehta say this is an important opportunity to build the category and launch more distinctive and technologically advanced products.

“Through boAt Labs (our 120-person in-house R&D team) and our acquisition of KaHa Technologies, a world-class wearable technology and IoT platform with 64 patents and patent applications, we are developing the next generation of products,” he said. The company ended the 2021-22 financial year with around Rs 3,000 crore in revenue.