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New Funding to Help Bolster BookMyShow's Footprint In Southeast Asia The undisclosed investment came from Singapore's Jungle Ventures

By Aparajita Saxena

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BookMyShow owner, Bigtree Entertainment Singapore on Tuesday said it had received funding from Singapore-based Jungle Ventures to help expand and strengthen its Southeast Asian business.

The investment amount was not disclosed.

The company said it will use the funds to shift its Southeast Asian unit's headquarters to Singapore and strengthen its tech operations.

BookMyShow - a platform that helps users book tickets for movies and live entertainment such as theatre plays and concerts - entered Indonesia in mid-2016, and expanded operations to other countries in the region, including Singapore and Malaysia, in 2019.

Earlier this year the India-based company also inked a deal with Grab to allow users to book tickets via BookMyShow from within the company's super app.

"The out-of-home entertainment ecosystem in Southeast Asia has immense growth potential and this partnership (with Jungle Ventures) is a testament to our vision," said Kenneth Tan, chief executive officer of BookMyShow's Southeast Asia business, in a press statement.

The company has raised a total of $224.5 million in funding over six rounds, according to data aggregator Crunchbase. Its latest fundraising was in January 2019, from investors including Capital18 and TPG Growth.

In November, the company announced a five-year partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon to enable in-app movie ticket bookings, giving it access to 100 million users in India.

"Entertainment experiences, particularly live events, are witnessing a strong growth in SEA..." said Jungles Ventures' Managing Partner David Gowdey, adding BookMyShow's platform is "poised to become the largest entertainment destination in the region."

Aparajita Saxena

Former Deputy Associate Editor, Asia Pacific

Aparajita is Former Deputy Associate Editor for Entrepreneur Asia Pacific. She joined Entrepreneur after nearly five years with Reuters, where she chased the Asian and U.S. finance markets.

At Entrepreneur Asia Pacific, she wrote about trends in the Asia Pacific startup ecosystem. She also loves to look for problems startups face in their day-to-day and tries to present ways to deal with those issues via her stories, with inputs from other startups that may have once been in that boat.

Outside of work, she likes spending her time reading books (fiction/non-fiction/back of a shampoo bottle), chasing her two dogs around the house, exploring new wines, solo-travelling, laughing at memes, and losing online multiplayer battle royale games.

 

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