Hasta La Gadget!

Kickstarter funding will often lead to the more traditional kind, and in the case of Boombotix, that’s exactly what happened. The California startup raised $17,000 for its music syncing app, which allows people to synchronize playback of music across multiple devices using mobile networks, and nearly $130,000 for its Boombot Rex mobile Bluetooth action-ready portable speaker. Now, it has also raised $4 million in venture funding from Social+ Capital, Baseline, Red Hills and many others.

May of its partners in this round are strategic in nature, and Boombotix co-founder Lief Storer says they were chosen for their ability to help build the brand.

“The investors’ interest is vested in amplifying our brand through product development and strategic marketing,” he explained in an interview. “There isn’t a single expense [in terms of using these funds] that stands out, but having key human capital in place to continue building the talent in the organization will be essential to the long-term strategy.”

Boombotix isn’t saying how many speakers it managed to see since its launch back in 2010, but it has seen its sales grow by triple figures since the debut of its Kickstarter campaigns, which also led to deals secured with retailers including Amazon, T-Mobile, Microsoft and Apple.com. The selling point of the Boombot REX is that it can stand up to mud, dust and some water exposure, as well as take spills, while providing quality sound, portability and also speaker phone functions, including the ability to use Siri on the iPhone from the gadget.

Its audio sync tech was designed to be an answer to user requests to broadcast to multiple speakers at once, which isn’t supported with standard Bluetooth. It isn’t perfect, but the app gets around this by allowing multiple devices (i.e. smartphones or tablets) to sync playback of music perfectly over a mobile network, which means that each can output music to their own attached Bluetooth speaker for what is effectively multi-speaker sound. Of course, you need more than one device to make it happen, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Boombot has begun to position its speakers as a wearable play, in part to capitalize on the growing interest in that device category. It’s true that they’re small and clip-mounted, and can be easily attached to clothing, but the key to growth will be holding appeal beyond the current action sports group of core buyers. With fresh funding, perhaps that kind of expansion is exactly what’s in store.

There are plenty of Bluetooth speakers to choose from, which is exactly why I asked Boombotix co-founders Lief Storer and Chris McKleroy what made them think the market needed another one. But Boombot Rex, the company’s latest Bluetooth speaker (it previously made a few different models based on collectable vinyl toy designs) is a different beast, and one they think can win over even the jaded Kickstarter crowd, which has seen countless iterations of wireless mobile speakers.

“Where our speakers really stand out is that they’re all designed as wearable speakers,” Storer said in an interview. “For the first time, you have a piece that could be really used externally and actually replaces your phone, giving you that speakerphone/hands-free thing that other brick shaped units can’t provide.” While some devices like the Jambox are designed to be fairly comfortable both indoors and out, the Rex is made from the ground up to be a wearable external speaker that hits the bike trails or ski slopes with a user, stand up to significant abuse, and still sound terrific on your next trip. It features a number of external controls for controlling music playback and answering calls, as well as a noise-cancelling mic to make its speakerphone component more than just an afterthought.

The Rex has other benefits, too. Boombot claims it’s the smallest 2.1 sound system in the world, with two 36mm drivers and a bass woofer crammed into its 3.3mm wide, 1.8mm deep shell. It also boasts changeable front grills, which will eventually come in a variety of colors and designs, has survived drop testing at up to 2.5 meters, and boasts on-board Siri support via a dedicated button for those connecting it to an iPhone device. The rechargeable battery keeps the Rex going for up to six hours, which is less than the advertised run times of a lot of the competition, but it’s cheaper than most other speakers, too – estimated retail pricing is just $99, but backers can get it starting at a $75 pledge.

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The Rex isn’t Boombot’s first speaker, so unlike with many of those going to Kickstarter for funding, the company has plenty of experience with manufacturing partners, and with shipping devices to paying customers. They’re only looking for $27,000 in funding, too, and hope to ship by February, 2013. Storer explained why they’re targeting that specific amount, and why backers should trust that they can deliver.

“It’s a goal that’s just high enough for us to get a pilot run done,” he said. “We’ve raised some money from friends and family and we’ve made some investments to take this product really far, but our production facility is willing to do a small volume test run. We’ve had a number of mistakes when we built the original Boombots, and we’ve learned from those mistakes. Small hardware companies like ours can get just washed through one bad production run, so we want to take things slow with the initial order volume.”

Boombot Rex is a project with a lot of promise from a small hardware startup that has proven it can ship product. The San Francisco-based company may be taking on one of the most crowded smartphone accessory spaces out there, but it’s doing so in style with a twist on the concept that’s truly unique.