Paytm acquires majority stake in online ticketing and events platform Insider.in

By Shashwati Shankar, ET Bureau|Updated: Jul 13, 2017, 09.10 AM IST

Paytm acquires majority stake in online ticketing and events platform Insider.in 
 

BENGALURU: Paytm, India's biggest digital payments startup, has acquired a majority stake in Insider.in, an online ticketing and events platform backed by event management company Only Much Louder (OML), for a little over Rs 35 crore. 

Insider.in founder Shreyas Srinivasan will continue running the business, while OML founders and brothers Vijay and Ajay Nair will remain stakeholders and members of the advisory board. 

Following the acquisition, the focus will be on making Insider.in accessible to Paytm users, according to Vijay Nair, who met Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma this year and discussed the matter for about two to three months before closing the deal. Paytm, which counts SoftBank and Alibaba Group among its investors, has about 220 million users. "Through the association with Paytm, we can expect Insider.in to reach the next 100 million Indians who are coming online, who will become aware and int erested in cultural events, which is the focus of the platform," Nair told ET. 

Srinivasan, who will continue as CEO of Insider.in, said the number of events and experiences added to the platform last year increased five-fold to about 4,000 events by the end of December. "We saw 1.1 million monthly active users between October last year and March this year, which is the event season in India. We can also note that 30-40% of our users are repeat customers.The Paytm acquisition gives us both credibility and massive reach," Srinivasan told ET. 

Insider.in was earlier owned by OML, one of the leading ticketing platforms in India for events and properties including Bacardi NH7 Weekender and TV series 'The Dewarists'. "We believe that digital discovery and events marketing expertise will increase supply of quality events in India. This is a natural extension for us as we continue to build India's go-to destination for online movies and events," said Madhur Deora, chief financial officer at Paytm.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com