Essential by Andy Rubin receives investment worth $300 m

An analysis claims that Essential is ready to compete in the smartphone market with a market value between $900 million and $1 billion even before the release of any of its products

andy rubin
Reuters

Essential Mobiles has been making quite a roar in the market, which is justified considering the fact that the man behind Android, Andy Rubin is making his first Android phone. An analysis by Equidate claims that the company is ready to compete in the hyper-competitive smartphone market with a market value between $900 million and $1 billion even before the release of any of its products in the market. A silver lining to that is the recent investment that the Essential start-up got amounting to $300 million.

It was only a few days ago that Essential announced it first three products which are coming to the market soon. Among them, the Essential Phone which will compete with the likes of Samsung Galaxy S8 and LG G6 features world-class specifications. The other two products that were announced were a 360-degree camera which is hailed to be the "smallest and thinnest personal 360-degree camera" in the world and a home speaker, which will compete with the likes of Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers.

According to Bloomberg, the paperwork for the investment was submitted in late May. It seems like the investors have full faith on the start-up and its owner Andy Rubin, although the success of the products is yet to be analysed in the market. While the products do come with the guarantee of world-class features and a name which people can trust on, it is yet to be seen whether the consumers respond to the products like the investors are.

The main hindrance to the widespread popularity of the smartphone Essential is its hefty price tag of $699, which unlike other mobile phone producers like OnePlus are not opting for affordable pricing strategy. But, the investors do not seem to be wary of the fact that the company being a new one has priced their product so high. Instead, the influx of investments confirms the trust the investors have on Rubin and his company. The $300 million investment is not the only one that Rubin's company received, earlier, Rubin's Playground Global and Redpoint Ventures raised $30 million last year. Various other investors have expressed interest like, venture firm Altimeter Capital, Tencent Holdings and Foxconn.

This article was first published on June 12, 2017
READ MORE