Brands
boAt ropes in Rashmika Mandanna as brand ambassador
Mumbai: Homegrown audio and smartphone accessories brand boAt has roped in actor Rashmika Mandanna to promote its wearables category and TRebel collection. The brand has launched a special campaign called #DanceThroughLife to celebrate International Women’s Day.
With this campaign, the brand has launched an exclusive range of pop-coloured smartwatches designed specifically for women as a part of TRebel collection. Furthermore, the campaign aims to depict how women are doing away with the closeted ideology of what they are expected to be. “Starting 8 March, boAt will add its smartwatches (Vertex, Mercury, Matrix, Blaze and Xtend) to the TRebel collection and unveil the latest limited edition watch straps in various shades,” said the statement.
“Rashmika is cheerful and fits very well into the brand ethos of boAt with her millennial stance. Through this partnership, we intend to establish our presence in the southern market, along with strengthening our position in the smartwatches category,” said Imagine Marketing Ltd co-founder and CMO Aman Gupta.
Excited about this new partnership, Rashmika Mandanna added, “’For young India today, boAt represents an audience of choice who are looking to make a statement with their choice of accessories. It’s a brand whose values I admire and identify with as they are walking the talk. I am thrilled to be a part of the boAt family.”
The TRebel campaign was launched on Women’s Day last year with eminent faces like Kiara Advani, Bani J and Raja Kumari amongst others. The collection is available on Amazon and Flipkart, and boAt’s website.
Brands
UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
