BookMyShow Close To Raising Fresh Funds At A Valuation Of Over $1 Bn: Report

Mumbai-headquartered online ticketing platform BookMyShow may be the next entrant of India’s much-coveted unicorn club. A fresh round of funding reportedly worth around $100 Mn is likely to help BookMyShow increase its valuation from $800 Mn to over $1Bn.

An ET report cited sources familiar with the development to say that the company is in advanced stage talks to raise over $100 Mn. At present, private equity major General Atlantic is said to be the frontrunner for the deal valuing BookMyShow at around $1.1 Bn.

The new investors seeking 10-12% stake include Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek and investment banking major Goldman Sachs. Also, existing investor SAIF Partners, which holds 5.6% stake, will exit completely. SAIF Partners is expected to make over four times return on its investment.

It is being speculated that SAIF Partners is exiting completely because of its stake in BookMyShow-rival Paytm. Also, Accel India will mark a partial stake and is expected to reap in high returns.

BookMyShow was founded in Mumbai in 1999 by Ashish Hemrajani, Parikshit Dhar and Rajesh Balpande. It is currently present in more than 650 towns and cities across 4,500 screens in India. The company had last raised $100 Mn in a Series D funding round led by TPG Growth.

Till date, the company has raised over $224.5 Mn. In FY18, the company’s total revenue for the year was $54.4 Mn (INR 400.71 Cr), against $45.16 Mn (INR 332.38 Cr), a 20% jump over the previous year. The growth, however, was lesser than the 27% growth in FY17.

BookMyShow has been struggling with a declining growth rate and increased expenses. The company, which saw a growth of 34.3% in FY17, widened its losses 138 times that year.

BookMyShow’s biggest competitor in the space is Paytm. Paytm Entertainment also acquired TicketNew for ramping up its operations in the ticket booking business and claims to have successfully ticketed over 8,000 events with over a million tickets sold.

A report by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said that the Indian media and entertainment (M&E) industry would nearly double in size to $123 Bn (INR 8 Tn) by 2022, clocking 11-12% CAGR between 2016 and 2022.