India’s largest online movie ticketing and event booking site, BookMyShow.com has raised Rs. 150 crore from SAIF partners which values the company at Rs. 1000 Crore (approx USD 167 million) reports Times of India. Their existing investors Accel Partners also participated in this round. SAIF, Accel and Network18 will together own majority shares post this deal.
The funds raised will be utilized to expand rapidly into smaller cities and towns, spruce up their mobile platform and invest in tech driven disruptions.
This is Bookmyshow’s third round of funding which also saw founders selling some of their shares. The company has raised a total of approx. Rs. 300 crore till date.
Accel Partners had backed them heavily in August 2012 with an investment of Rs. 100 crore. At that time Bookmyshow had a monthly revenue run rate of Rs. 20 lakh. However, over the last 2 years BookMyShow has grown quite exponentially and their current estimated monthly run rate is about Rs. 10 Crore.
Bookmyshow was launched in August of 2007, five months after Network18 made their investment into the company. Over last couple of years, BookMyShow has expanded rapidly and are now present in over 200 cities in India. While they have tie-ups with all the major multiplexes in India, they are now targeting single screen theatres in towns and cities to increase their reach.
Bookmyshow currently offers tickets for movies, plays, events and sports fixtures like IPL, Formula One etc. They have recently ventured internationally and are currently offering tickets for FIFA World cup, International music festivals, rock / pop band concerts and more.
The company claims that they currently sell over 4 million tickets per month and have breached 100 million ticket sales till date. The bookmyshow.com site has witnessed 35 million visits and over half a billion pageviews till date.
There is no doubt that BookMyShow is one of the biggest online success stories in India outside of e-commerce space.