Bigtree Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., the holding company of India’s leading entertainment ticketing company BookMyShow, today announced an investment from SAIF Partners and its existing investors Accel Partners and Network18. The investors have invested INR 150 crore as part of this round which valued the company at over INR 1,000 crore.

BookMyShow has been scaling rapidly, more than doubling its revenues every year over the last few years. With over 35 million visits and approximately 500 million page views, BookMyShow has grown to become one of the largest transacting e-commerce platforms in the country. The company has sold over 100 million tickets till date. BookMyShow now has a presence in over 200 cities and is striving to further penetrate the single screen cinema segment in each of those markets.

Avendus Capital was the sole financial advisor to this transaction.

With this round of financing, the company is looking to invest in increasing its penetration outside Tier I cities, build on its infrastructure and expand its offering in order to take its customer experience to the next level.

On signing the deal, Mr. Ashish Hemrajani, Founder & CEO of BookMyShow, said “We are very happy to have SAIF Partners as our latest investors. The common vision of creating scalable and large businesses was aligned to our thought process. Their experience of having helped companies such as MakeMyTrip and Just Dial go public would be of immense value to us as we move forward in our growth plans. We are also very happy to have delivered value to our existing investors and the fact that both Network 18 and Accel have further invested in this round, shows their confidence in the company and the ability of the team to continue delivering and innovating.”

Commenting on the transaction, Mr. Aashish Bhinde, Executive Director (Digital Media & Technology) at Avendus said, “BookMyShow has grown from strength to strength to become one of the leading digital brands in India - this financing round is a strong validation of that. Partnering with leading investors in the digital space should help the team accelerate digital penetration by building on their mobile success story and by expanding their value proposition around how consumers plan and consume their entertainment options.”

About BookMyShow.com

Bigtree Entertainment's BookMyShow.com is the largest entertainment ticketing portal in India with over 90% market share in the online entertainment ticketing space. Headquartered in Mumbai, BookMyShow.com has an enviable kitty of over 1800 screens spanning across 350 cinemas in more than 100 cities. BookMyShow.com tickets for over 1000 events every year across India. In the arena of Sports, 75% of India's largest sporting events are managed by BookMyShow.com. Some of them include Formula 1, Indian Premier League, Indian Cricket League, Aircel Chennai Open, Super Fight League, Yonex Badminton Championships, etc. With over 200 million average page views a quarter, BookMyShow.com has an active and loyal database of over 5 million happy consumers. It has a fan following of over 3.0 million Facebook and Twitter users with a Klout score of 79. BookMyShow.com has special downloadable mobile applications for Blackberry, iPhone, Android and Windows phone. It has also been awarded in the category of 'The Hottest Company of the Year-2011-12’ and ‘The Company To Watch Out For' in the prestigious CNBC Young Turks Award and the Yahoo! India Awards 2012-13 for the Best Use in Search Category. On an average, BookMyShow.com sells more than four million tickets per month. BookMyShow.com is one of the top three e-commerce websites in India w.r.t transaction volumes. For more information, please visit www.bookmyshow.com 

About SAIF Partners

SAIF Partners India is a leading sector and stage agnostic fund with over $1B capital under management in the country. SAIF Partners has been investing in Indian since 2002 across sectors like internet, ITeS/KPO, consumer products and services, financial services and healthcare. SAIF has a portfolio of over 30 companies, which includes Makemytrip, JustDial, HomeShop18, One97 Communications, Zovi.com, Firstcry.com and Urbanladder.com. For more information, please visit www.saifpartners.com 

About Accel Partners

Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London and Bangalore, as well as in China via its partnership with IDG-Accel. Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including 99designs, Actuate, AdMob, Agile Software, Alfresco, Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, BBN, Bonobos, Braintree, Brightcove, Cloudera, ComScore, Diapers.com (Quidsi), Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook, Fusion-IO, Gameforge, GlamMedia, Groupon, Imperva, Infinera, Interwoven, IronPlanet, JBoss, Kayak,Lookout, Macromedia, metroPCS, MoPub, OPOWER, Polycom/PictureTel, Playfish, Portal Software, QlikTech, Rapt, Real Networks, Redback, Responsys, Riverbed, Spotify, Squarespace, SunRun, Trulia, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, Webroot, Wonga, XenSource and Zimbra. In India, Accel has made investments in companies such as Ace Creative Learning, Babyoye, EduPristine, enStage, Flipkart, Forus, FreshDesk, HealthcareMagic, Mitra Biotech, MuSigma, Myntra, Perfint, Probe, PropTiger, QwikCilver, SherSingh, SureWaves, Trivone, Vinculum and Virident. For more information, please visit www.accel.com 

About Network18 Group

The Network18 Group is a media and entertainment company with interests in television, internet, films, e-commerce, magazines, mobile content and allied businesses. Through its subsidiary ‘TV18 Broadcast Ltd.’ [BSE: 532800, NSE: TV18BRDCST], the group operates news channels - CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz, CNBC-TV18 Prime HD, CNN-IBN, IBN7 and IBN-Lokmat (a Marathi regional news channel in partnership with the Lokmat group). TV18 also operates a joint venture with Viacom, called Viacom18, which houses a portfolio of popular entertainment channels – Colors, Colors HD,MTV, SONIC, Comedy Central, VH1 and Nick - and Viacom18 Motion Pictures, the group’s filmed entertainment business. TV18 and Viacom18 have also recently announced a strategic joint venture called IndiaCast, a multi-platform ‘content asset monetization’ entity mandated to drive domestic and international channel distribution, placement services and content syndication for the bouquet of channels from TV18,Viacom18 and other broadcasters. TV18 has also forayed into the Indian factual entertainment space through A+E Networks | TV18 (Joint venture between A+E Networks and TV18 Broadcast), which has recently launched a new channel – HistoryTV18. Through ‘Network18 Media & Investments Ltd.’ [BSE: 532798, NSE: Network18], the group operates its digital, publishing and e-commerce assets including moneycontrol.com, ibnlive.com, in.com and firstpost.com. ‘Network18’ also operates e-commerce properties like HomeShop18 and bookmyshow.com and publishes Forbes India, the nation's first local edition of a foreign news magazine title and one of the world’s most influential business brands, in collaboration with Forbes Media. In addition, through ‘Network18’, the group operates Newswire18, providing real time financial information and news terminal services, and Network18 Publishing, a player in the special interest publishing space as well as E18, the group’s event management venture and Sport18, its sports management and marketing venture. ‘Network18’ has investments in Yatra, DEN Networks and other Capital18 portfolio companies. For more information, please visit www.network18online.com 

About Avendus Capital Pvt. Ltd. (“AVENDUS CAPITAL”)

Avendus Capital is a leading financial services firm which provides customised solutions in the areas of financial advisory, equity capital markets, alternative asset management and wealth management. The firm relies on its extensive track record, in-depth domain understanding and knowledge of the economic and regulatory environment, to offer research based solutions to its clients that include institutional investors, corporations and high net worth individuals/families. In recent years, Avendus Capital has consistently been ranked among the leading corporate finance advisors in India and has emerged as the advisor of choice for cross-border M&A deals, having closed around 38 cross-border transactions in the past 5 years. Avendus PE Investment Advisors manages funds raised from its investors by investing in public markets, while Avendus Wealth Management caters to investment advisory and portfolio management needs of Family offices and Ultra High Networth Individuals / families, spanning all asset classes. Headquartered in Mumbai, the firm has offices in New Delhi and Bangalore.

Avendus Capital, Inc (US) and Avendus Capital (UK) Pvt. Ltd. located in New York and London respectively are wholly owned subsidiaries offering M&A and Private Equity syndication services to clients in the respective regions. Avendus Capital, Inc (US) also provides wealth management services to clients in select jurisdictions in USA. For more information, please visit www.avendus.com