Bangalore based event ticketing platform, Explara, has raised $486K( INR 3.2 Cr) in pre-series A funding round led by Hyderabad Angels, and including participation from businessman Ness Wadia, Singapore Angel Network and Hyderabad Angels.
Existing investors Blume Ventures, Krishna Lakamsani and Rajan Anandan also participated in this round. The funds will be used to roll out a movie ticketing platform next month.
As part of the funding, Krishna Lakamsani, an investor with Hyderabad Angels and P S Sreekanth, Investment Director at Hyderabad Angels, will join Explara’s Board as Director and Observer, respectively.
Krishna Lakamsani, who led the investment at Hyderabad Angels stated, “ Explara has great potential for growth in the city experiences markets.”
Explara sells tickets in event categories such as sports, travel and food, and has tied up with about 30 single theatres and multiplexes in Maharashtra and Gujarat. It will roll out the movie ticketing service next month, in which it will face direct competition from BookMyShow.
Currently, it has more than 10,000 suppliers on board, with access to inventory for various events and activities, in multiple cities. Explara has also expanded its platform to serve outdoor activities, and the F&B industry. To further enable the marketplace on the consumer side, Explara has recently launched the ‘City Experiences discovery’ mobile app for Android & iOS.
Santosh Panda, founder and CEO stated, “We have integrated the movie ticketing platform with Ola and Paytm to create an experience around it. For other events, we are exploring distribution partnerships with travel sites for location-specific recommendation and other institution partners.”
The startup founded in 2009, handles about 1,000 transactions a day and expects to clock revenues of $7.6 Mn ( INR 50 Cr) for FY 2015-16. The platform has done close to 10,000 events in FY 15 with about 4000 events in the month of September alone. For FY 16, it aims to hit around 50,000 events this year.
In April this year, it acquired event ticketing platform for performing arts IndianStage for an undisclosed amount, adding more cities with access to the theatre and entertainment segments.
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