MeraEvents clocks INR 2 Cr monthly ticket sales, bids to raise second round to expand globally
The perfect platform to manage our events hasn't arrived in India yet. I’ve had conversations with people who have used online event management platforms, and I was told how two of the popular platforms are a big disappointment. The recurring reasons for that are mainly aimed at bad UX. For example, from the admin point of view, it’s so confusing to look at these sites. There are so many features that users don’t know what to do with. Either these platforms need quick and short explainer videos or they need to make the features so easy that people don’t need a learning curve to pass. The other lacking feature is team registration. If you want to register your group, you can’t. That feature is so basic it should have been there by now. Global players like EventBright has it, but non of the Indian players.
Ranting about the event platforms aside, YourStory had an email conversation with the MeraEvents founder Chennappa Naidu about the status of the company after raising a million dollar a few months ago. Here are excerpts from the interaction.
Flourishing business
Naidu claimed that MeraEvents “has been able to achieve Rs. 2 crore in terms of sale of tickets in September 2014. Growth has been steady and consistent in the last six months; beginning with a sale of tickets worth Rs. 0.65 cr in April, we clocked a ticket sale worth Rs. 2 cr in September.”
That is the highest number of tickets in any single month, and the highest transaction amount in a single month ever done on MeraEvents platform.
“We sold 31,972 tickets worth Rs 8 cr from 823 unique events, 363 unique organizers, and 46 different cities,” he added.
In the corresponding period (Apr-Sept) in 2013, MeraEvents sold 11,231 tickets worth around Rs 2.15 cr from 442 unique events, 237 unique organizers, and 29 different cities. In the past six months, the company has grown its traffic by 150%.
What is next for MeraEvents?
To put it in simple terms, MeraEvents aspires to be an end-to-end event technology solutions company. It will be kicking off customizable events webpage (EventWebsites.in), payment gateway solutions, beef up mobile agenda and networking solutions moozup.com, check-in and badge printing solutions Easytag.in, and complete digital marketing solutions for events. YourSory had earlier reported about DigiBroc solution.
When we buy movie tickets we have the luxury to do so on-the-go via BookMyShow. This is an area where neither Explara nor MeraEvents focus on. It is the need of the hour for folks on the move. Naidu quipped, “When it comes to the mobile, the audience is posting a steady growth at the rate 30 per cent. And about 25 per cent of the business comes from mobile audience.” He added, “However, the company is rapidly progressing towards launching a dedicated mobile app for MeraEvents in the next calendar year.”
New rounds of funding?
Yes, it seems around the corner. MeraEvents has raised $1 million recently. The founder said he is in the process “to raise some more funding that would significantly widen the vision we envisage for the company in the next three to six months. As part of this endeavor, we are engaged in discussions with investors to raise another USD 5 million to buttress the activity of the company and also expand the operations globally.”
At present, MeraEvents has 54 employees, and the headcount is expected to reach 100 before the end of the financial year. The company will be branching out internationally and this would enable it to handle the 300+ Scientific and Medical conferences of OMICS Group globally, among other events. OMICS has invested in MeraEvents in the previous round. As of now, 96.6% visitors’ traffic of MeraEvents is generated in India.
The company also wants to make strategic investments in a live video streaming company. (Startups you can go pitch to Naidu now).
The Rs.2 crore revenue has been generated due to the efforts of the event organizer and MeraEvents team. Naidu says, “We are able to differentiate tickets sold through our efforts vs organizer efforts. We charge only 1.99% for the organizer efforts and we would charge 10-20% for our efforts.”
Feature image inspiration: Startcup
