The funding ladder and two attempts at an IPO
boAt's outside money came late and rarely. The first large cheque arrived in January 2021, when Warburg Pincus led a round of close to 100 million dollars in Imagine Marketing, the parent company. Qualcomm Ventures, the investment arm of Qualcomm, followed in April 2021, three months later. By September 2025 the company had raised more than 170 million dollars in total, with Warburg Pincus still the largest external shareholder and Fireside Ventures and Qualcomm holding significant stakes. [5] [8]
The first listing attempt came in January 2022, when the company filed draft papers for a 2,000 crore rupee offering, of which 900 crore rupees was to be fresh equity and 1,100 crore rupees an offer for sale. The issue never opened. In October 2022 the company raised 500 crore rupees instead from an affiliate of Warburg Pincus and from Malabar Investments, through preference shares, and withdrew the papers. Gupta explained the change in direction by saying the money would go into smartwatches and into local manufacturing rather than into an expensive listing. [6]
The second attempt was more cautious. Imagine Marketing used the confidential pre-filing route with the Securities and Exchange Board of India in April 2025, which allows a company to keep its draft papers private until a later stage, and it received the regulator's approval in the last days of August 2025. At that point the company was reported to be targeting a valuation of around 1.5 billion dollars, or roughly 13,000 crore rupees. [7] [8]
The updated draft papers filed in October 2025 cut the size of the issue to 1,500 crore rupees, of which 500 crore rupees was fresh and 1,000 crore rupees was an offer for sale by existing investors. The sellers were listed individually: Sameer Mehta for 75 crore rupees, Aman Gupta for 225 crore rupees, South Lake Investment for 500 crore rupees, Fireside Ventures Investment Fund-I for 150 crore rupees and Qualcomm Ventures for 50 crore rupees. [7]
The listing has not happened. CNBC-TV18 reported that the issue had been deferred again even with the regulator's clearance in hand, and the company's own statements through 2026 continued to talk about readiness rather than a date. For Gupta the practical effect of that deferral is that a stake which the draft papers valued at hundreds of crores remains a stake in an unlisted company. [1]
