Mumbai, July 5: Bigtree Entertainment, which owns and operates online movie and event ticketing platform BookMyShow, has raised over Rs 550 crore from a group of investors led by US-based Stripes Group.
The funding round, the largest for the company, reportedly values the Mumbai-based firm at Rs 3,000 crore. Bigtree Entertainment will use the proceeds to strengthen its international presence and acquire companies working in areas such as big data and analytics.
The funding saw participation from BookMyShow's existing investors, including Network 18, Accel Partners and SAIF Partners. The trio had invested Rs 150 crore in 2014.
Founded in 1999 by Ashish Hemrajani, Parikshit Dar and Rajesh Balpande and re-launched in 2007, BookMyShow is present in over 350 towns and cities across India.
It saw about 100 million transactions on its platform in 2015-16. In March this year, the company acquired Fantain Sports, which provides fan insights and engagements in its fan relationship management platform.
BookMyShow, which allows users to book tickets for movies, plays, sports and live events through its website, app and mobile site, has entered Indonesia and plans to foray into Sri Lanka later this month. The company gets a large part of its revenue from the sale of movie tickets and is looking to double its revenues.
"Since the first meeting in early 2015, Stripes has got to know the company well and has witnessed consistent execution, rapid, capital efficient growth and continued innovation. They (BookMyShow) selected Stripes to lead the round given our operating experience in digital ticketing, as well our history of building transactional Internet brands," a statement from Stripes Group, which invests in Internet, software, healthcare IT and branded consumer products businesses, said.
"The company intends to use this growth capital to enhance its convenience and offerings to customers as it evolves from a ticketing portal to a true 'entertainment destination' as well as entering new international territories.''
BookMyShow is Stripes Group's first investment in India. Its other portfolio companies include Art.com, GrubHub, Remitly, GoFundMe and eMarketer. BMR Legal served as the legal adviser and Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial adviser to Bigtree Entertainment for the funding round.
