CHENNAI: Online bus ticketing startup ticketgoose.com has raised its second round of funds through crowdfunding, a concept where a group of investors pool in funds to invest in a company. The startup has raised Rs 24 crore from Indventure, a US-based crowdfunding platform.<\/p>\n
The company used its first round of funding of Rs 6 crore (also through crowdfunding from a bunch of US-based investors) for developing its technology and ramping up inventory, and will now use these funds for marketing and brand building, Karthi Easwaramoorthy, president and cofounder of TicketGoose, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 30,000 crore bus ticketing market is untapped and is growing at about 30% every year. We will focus on marketing our product and expanding our reach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Chennai-based company was incorporated in 2007, but began operations in 2009, Easwaramoorthy said. It has tied up with over 1,000 tour operators and works with over 20,000 buses on 20,000 routes. Along with ticketing, the portal has options to book food and travel insurance packages in partnership with Foodbox<\/p>\n
The company earned Rs 55 crore in revenues last year, and expects to close this fiscal with a turnover of about Rs 70 crore, Easwaramoorthy said. While the crowdfunding concept has been used for events and films in India, Ticketgoose is amongst the first few startups in India to raise funds through crowdfunding.<\/p>\n
Bangalore-based Connovate Technology which raised about $54,000 in 2013, and Kochi-based RHLvision Interactive LLP, which raised over $200,000 this year, are other Indian startups that took the crowdfunding route.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This article covered about Ticketgoose.com that was published in Times of India on March 27, 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t