BookMyShow makes fourth acquisition of 2017 with Sharjah-based Nfusion
It has been a year of acquisitions for BookMyShow. A month after acquiring foodtech startup Burrp, BookMyshow today announced the acquisition of Sharjah-based Nfusion for an undisclosed amount in an all-cash deal.
Set up in 2009 by Shoaib G.M. Khan, Sivagurunathan S and Prabhakar Reddy as an HD video-on-demand platform that allowed its users to stream videos online Nfusion has now been integrated with the BookMyShow platform to launch Jukebox, where users can now download music.
This is BookMyShow’s fourth acquisition this year, after it acquired Hyderabad-based online movie ticketing platform MastiTickets, invested in Pune-based DIY platform Townscript and also acquired Mumbai-based local food and restaurant recommendation engine Burrp.
Also read: The rise and fall of India’s oldest foodtech startup – was Burrp served a cold lunch?
Nfusion’s scalable tech solutions, especially CMS (content management system), will be key to the success of BookMyShow’s foray into audio entertainment. The acquisition not just provides BookMyShow a robust tech platform but also an experienced team that will provide a fillip to BookMyShow’s audio entertainment offerings. While the Nfusion team will be headed by Shoaib, Sivagurunathan will lead the Architecture and DevOps teams at BookMyShow.
Parikshit Dar, Director, BookMyShow says,
“In our quest to become a one-stop destination for entertainment, we had two options: either building a product of our own, or look at someone who had already built a product that could be integrated with our platform. The Nfusion team has brought with them immense experience, innovation capability as well as expertise in building and managing scalable tech solutions. With them and our music label partners, we look forward to offering the widest variety and possibly the best curated audio content to our users.”
Through Jukebox, BookMyShow already offers free music downloads to its users. Whenever users book movie tickets on BookMyShow, they are rewarded with music credits that can be redeemed to download their favourite songs on the Android or iOS app. Currently, BookMyShow offers over 1.5 million songs to choose from and has already been witnessing a 300-percent growth month-on-month in the number of downloads.
To lead this vertical, BookMyShow has appointed Aditya Kuber as Associate Vice President – Audio Entertainment. He will report to Ashish Hemrajani, CEO and Founder, BookMyShow. Aditya’s role will be instrumental in driving partnerships with music labels and distributors, creating exclusive audio content for BookMyShow users, and product marketing. He brings with him over 17 years of experience and has a history of working across media, publishing, digital, and advertising.
Speaking about Jukebox, Aditya says that there are different plans that the team has in place at the moment, one of it being bringing a list of curated music options for their users. Last year, BookMyShow had raised its fourth round of funding of Rs 550 crore, from Stripes Group, and had also ventured into the international markets.
Ashish had said that the funds would be utilised to roll out new and exclusive entertainment experiences, enhance its offerings, and build a one-stop shop gateway to entertainment in India. After raising the funding, BookMyShow has made acquisitions and product launches to meet this end. This year, the Mumbai-based online ticketing platform also faces competition from Paytm, which has also ventured into space.