Bookmyshow buys controlling stake in India’s answer to Eventbrite

TownScript founders Sachin Sharma and Sanchit Malik. Photo credit: TownScript.

India’s Bookmyshow has acquired Townscript, the company announced today. The value of the 75 percent stake is not disclosed.

“We have been working on introducing such a feature for a long time. But we later found that Townscript was already doing it. It was a natural thing for us to invest in them,” Bookmyshow spokesperson told Tech in Asia.

The buyout will allow Bookmyshow to foray into Eventbrite-style do-it-yourself ticketing. For example, if you want to hold a workshop on effective communication but don’t want to pay an events company, you can create your event on the portal and start selling tickets online within five minutes.

Townscript, founded in January 2014 by Sachin Sharma and Sanchit Malik, takes care of registration and ticketing needs for events such as workshops, conferences, exhibitions, marathons, and adventure events. Once you post an event, the registration and ticketing page is generated automatically.

Townscript will continue to run independently.

The Pune-based startup says it has hosted over 12,000 events across the country since its inception. It has two event apps – one dedicated to enthusiasts looking to book events, and a second for event organisers – helping them manage registrations on the go.

Townscript charges a fee of 3.99 percent on transactions, plus US$0.15 per booking.

Organizers can build and customize event details as per their needs, offer promotional discounts, communicate with the attendees, collect payments, transfer or refund tickets. The startup has also integrated a data analytics feature in the portal that tracks event progress, attendee demographics, preferred time for an event, and so on.

Build or buy

“The investment will be primarily utilised towards building and improving the product offering to technology solutions that address all pain points of registration based events right from school annual days, expos and conventions,” Sachin Sharma, co-founder of Townscript said.

Post the investment, Townscript will be part of Bookmyshow parent company Bigtree Entertainment but will function independently. Townscript’s DIY feature will be integrated into Bookmyshow with a link leading to the startup portal in the coming few months.

Townscript is Bookmyshow’s second deal in 2017. It acquired Hyderabad-based ticketing portal MastiTickets in an all-cash deal in January.

As part of the newest buyout, Bookmyshow’s manager for business development Hemant Madhwani will move to Townscript to help the startup scale up operations, improve its consumer interface, and upgrade technology. It’ll also immediately get access to Bookmyshow patrons.

(Updated one hour after publishing: Changed title from “Bookmyshow acquires India’s answer to Eventbrite.”)