PressPlay raises $2.2M to make long distance bus rides more fun in India

Most people in India take buses for long distance travel, and it can get tedious. Most of these buses have a beaten up TV set blaring out raunchy movie songs not to everyone’s taste.

Two sales professionals of restaurant discovery site Zomato suffered the pain of this quite frequently because they were often on the road. One day they decided to do something about it.

Anand Sinha and George Abraham started handing out tablet computers to fellow passengers, loaded with a wide selection of music, movies, shows, and games, for a small fee.

This grew into a full-fledged business idea, and they quit their jobs with Zomato to start Press Play. Now, this travel entertainment startup has raised US$2.2 million in pre-series A funding from Sequoia Capital and a group of eight angel investors. The startup had earlier raised US$500,000 from angel investors.

At the outset, PressPlay placed tablets in buses, locked on the backs of seats. But it has recently pivoted to an app-based model, as increasing numbers of bus travelers in India have smartphones. Travelers can now get connected to wi-fi in the bus which allows them to access Press Play’s app called “Touchplay” on their smartphones. The app is loaded with a range of 30 movies, 1,000 songs, and 10 documentaries and cartoons.

The fresh funding will be used to upgrade its technology. Press Play will add other services, which will give users access to Whatsapp and Facebook.

PressPlay has traveled a long way since the ex-Zomato sales professionals ran a pilot project in December 2013 by boarding an Amritsar-bound bus from Delhi with 10 tablets pre-loaded with five movies each. They pitched for INR 100 (US$1.6) and managed to rent them out to fellow bus travelers.

Eventually, they placed 1,000 such tablets in buses. It was only then they realized that it was not possible to scale up with this asset-heavy model. Hence the pivot.

“We are sales guys,” says Sinha. “Technology was never our forte. So, when we raised our angel round, we were quick to deploy that on tech upgradation to help us come out with a high-quantum, low-cost model.”

While earlier, they would charge INR 100 (US$1.6) for an entertainment package of five hours, today their services are free for the first hour and then, at INR 10 (US$0.16) for the rest of the journey.

Three weeks into the pivot, it claims to have served 30,000 passengers.

It has tied up with eight state transport operators, including those of Rajasthan, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh, besides 50 private operators, to provide the service. It’s available in about 600 buses across 14 cities currently. “We hope to be in at least 10 more cities in the coming six months and get 10,000 customers using the application everyday,” says Sinha.

“Long distance road travel has never been fun. Someone had to find a solution,” he adds.