BookMyShow raises $25M from SAIF Partners and existing investors Accel, Network18

Bigtree Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., which owns India's online entertainment ticketing property BookMyShow, has raised Rs 150 crore ($25 million) from new investor SAIF Partners besides existing investors Accel Partners and Network18. The transaction values the venture at over Rs 1,000 crore, as per a company statement.

This takes the total funding in the company to just under Rs 220 crore. Network18 had originally acquired 60 per cent in the company for close to Rs 20 crore, a part of which went to the founders for selling some shares. In 2012 Accel Partners invested Rs 100 crore of which half went to the company and the rest went to Networ18 which part exited. In this round it was valued at around Rs 350 crore.

With this round of financing, the company is looking to invest in increasing its penetration outside tier I cities, build on its infrastructure and expand its offering.

BookMyShow competes with the likes of KyaZoonga, but is much larger in size. The firm has been scaling up rapidly, more than doubling its revenues every year over the last few years. With over 35 million visits and approximately 500 million page views, BookMyShow has grown to become one of the largest transacting e-commerce platforms in the country. The company claims it has sold over 100 million tickets to date.

It has added 20 new cities by adding new cinemas or handling ticketing for events in those cities. BookMyShow now has a presence in over 200 cities and is striving to further penetrate the single-screen cinema segment in each of those markets.

The company has added over 300 single-screen cinemas alone in the past one year.

Ashish Hemrajani, founder & CEO of BookMyShow, said "Their (SAIF Partners) experience of having helped companies such as MakeMyTrip and Just Dial go public would be of immense value to us as we move forward in our growth plans. We are also very happy to have delivered value to our existing investors and the fact that both Network 18 and Accel have further invested in this round, shows their confidence in the company and the ability of the team to continue delivering and innovating."

Deepak Gaur, MD - SAIF Partners, said, "We are confident that with the current round of capital raise, BookMyShow team will continue to strengthen the relentless focus on innovation, customer service and technology as our country takes rapid strides in internet penetration."

SAIF Partners is also an investor in Network18's other e-commerce venture HomeShop18, which is in the queue to go public in the US.

Avendus Capital was the sole financial advisor and BMR Legal was the legal advisor to this transaction.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)