Ratan Tata invests in Mumbai-based e-ticketing startup Kyazoonga
E-ticketing startup Kyazoonga has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, according to reports. The funds will be deployed by the startup for market expansion, to enter geographies like United States, West Asia, Pakistan and the Caribbean Islands.
Started in 2007, Kyazoonga looks at partnering with sports franchises, music concerts, promoters and event organisers. According to Founder Neetu Bhatia the company sold more than 25 million tickets last year.
Neetu said,
We are largely focused on sporting and entertainment events, but not really movies. That's how we differentiate ourselves from the existing players in the market. At the backend, we have our own IP and ticketing technology platform that enables us to scale up domestically.
In the past, Mumbai-based Kyazoonga has ticketed international events like the ICC Cricket World Cup and the FIFA World Cup (qualifiers) apart from domestic sporting leagues such as Indian Premier League and the Pro Kabaddi League. The company is also vying to be the official ticketing partner for the Rio 2016 Olympics.
In September last year, the firm started ticketing for events in the US from its new office in Los Altos in Silicon Valley. They had already signed on two editions for the Carribean Premier League in West Indies for Rs 100 crore deal and also started ticketing for a few events in California and Washington DC. The company is also looking to triple its team of 50 in the next one year.
However, Kyazoonga has had its share of problems in the past like its website crashing. Kyazoonga’s website crashed in 2013, during cricketing legend Sachin Tendulakar’s final test match. Selected as the official ticketing partner for Sachin's final test by the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA), Kyazoonga said that it received five times the traffic experienced during Olympic ticket sales. It had faced similar outages during the ICC World Cup too when 10 million users logged on to the site.
The market
Although not into movie ticket booking, Kyazoonga still competes with players like BookMyShow and MeraEvents in India.
Founded in 1999, Mumbai-based BookMyShow is currently reported to be in advanced talks with investors to raise around $75 million (around Rs 500 crore) in its largest round of fund-raising yet. Seeking investors in the US, the company seems to be in talks with the US-based growth equity fund Stripes Group. Existing partners are also looking to participate in this fourth funding round.
According to BookMyShow Co-founder Ashish Hemrajani the size of the total addressable ticketing market in India is 500 million. Further, BookMyShow plans to sell close to 150 million tickets this year, an increase of 50 percent over 2015. This is four times of what Kyazoonga sold in 2015.
Further, Neetu believes that the US market for ticketing is even bigger, worth close to $25 billion for ticketing.
Mr Ratan Tata has invested in over 25 startups, with the most recent being Artificial Intelligence startup Niki.ai.
Mr Tata has also said in the past that he invests in new ventures if “the idea excites” him, and the first impressions of the founders are good.
Website: www.kyazoonga.com
(Disclaimer: Ratan Tata is an investor in YourStory)