Aman Gupta, born on 4 March 1982, is an Indian entrepreneur and angel investor. He is a co-founder, and was the chief marketing officer, of the Indian consumer electronics brand boAt Lifestyle, and a judge and investor on the business reality show Shark Tank India. He stepped down as chief marketing officer 29 days before the company filed its IPO prospectus.
He was born in Delhi, to Neeraj Gupta and Jyoti Kochar Gupta. He studied at Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram, and graduated with a BCom (Honours) from Shaheed Bhagat Singh College of the University of Delhi. He is a qualified chartered accountant and holds an MBA in finance and strategy from the Indian School of Business.
He started as an assistant manager at Citi and then joined KPMG as a senior management consultant. He later co-founded Advanced Telemedia Private Limited, where he became chief executive. According to Wikipedia he founded boAt in 2016 with Sameer Mehta, while some other reports date the company to 2013, so IndiaX24 uses the 2016 figure with that caveat. The company sells headphones, smartwatches and speakers.
boAt’s parent, Imagine Marketing, has received regulatory approval for an initial public offering of about Rs 1,500 crore, reports said, with a fresh issue of up to Rs 500 crore and an offer for sale of Rs 1,000 crore, including shares worth Rs 225 crore by Gupta and Rs 75 crore by Mehta. His boAt brand was named one of the world’s top five wearable brands in 2020 and 2021.
He is one of the main investors and judges on Shark Tank India, in which he has appeared for five seasons, and has invested in more than 100 companies and start-ups. In 2022 he and the other judges appeared as VIP contestants on Kaun Banega Crorepati and as guests on The Kapil Sharma Show in 2022 and 2023. He represented India at the Indo-French CEO Forum alongside Prime Minister Modi for a second time, emphasising the success of the “Make in India” initiative, with boAt making a significant portion of its products locally, and called for greater collaboration between Indian and French start-ups, including joint participation in India’s Startup Mahakumbh and France’s VivaTech.
He has since ventured into a new business with OffBeat Studios, which secured Rs 100 crore in seed funding. He married Priya Dagar in 2008 and they have two daughters.
Beyond boAt, his public profile rests on his willingness to talk about the early struggle of building a consumer brand in India. He has said in interviews that he learned from a corporate career before starting out, and that the company grew by selling affordable audio products online and through retail. On Shark Tank India he is known for backing consumer-facing start-ups, and he has used his own investments to promote the idea that Indian founders can build brands at home.
His recognitions include the Businessworld Young Entrepreneur Award in 2019, a place in the Entrepreneur India Tech 25 class that year, the 2020 Super 30 CMOs win and Entrepreneur of the Year, Businessworld’s 40 Under 40 in 2020, the Economic Times 40 Under 40 in 2021, the Lokmat Most Stylish Entrepreneur award in 2021, Retailer India Entrepreneur of the Year in 2022 and the National Creator Award for Celebrity Creator in 2024.
Featured image: Headphones on a desk (file photo; boAt, the company Aman Gupta co-founded, sells headphones, and this is not a photo of him). Photo by Lirazelf, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
