Online event venue booking platform BookEventZ.com, based in Mumbai, said it has raised an undisclosed sum in Series A funding from venture capital firm Equanimity Investments, backed, among others, by well-known emerging markets investor Mark Mobius.
Mumbai-based Equanimity Investments was founded by Rajesh Sehgal, formerly with US-based Franklin Templeton Investments, from where Mobius retired at the end of January 2018.
BookEventZ.com said in a release that the fresh capital will be used to grow the company to 100 venues in Mumbai from over 30 now.
In 2016, BookEventZ.com, previously called UrbanRestro, raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A round from Lead Angels, Mumbai Angels and LetsVenture.
In 2015, BookEventZ.com, owned and operated by Urban Online Services Pvt. Ltd, raised an undisclosed sum from angel investors led by Mumbai Angels. Other participants in the round include Singapore Angel Network and Zishaan Hayath, founder of Toppr.com.
Shriti Chhajed co-founded BookEventZ.com in 2012, then called UrbanRestro, a banquet planning and restaurant reservations portal, with a seed capital of Rs 25 lakh provided by her husband Harsh Baid, an investment banker. Chhajed holds an MBA degree from SP Jain School of Management, while Baid is an alumnus of IIT-Mumbai and IIM-Lucknow.
Chhajed said, "We have been profitable for the last one year and are growing organically. The partnership with Equanimity has come at a very right time for us to expand the business exponentially.”
BookEventZ claims to have served over 350,000 events so far and lists over 10,000 properties in India. It enables consumers to organise events and select vendor services from the platform. Apart from having various venue options, the firm offers a virtual tour of venues and real-time availability.
The company competes with firms like Chennai-based Eventus Software Services Pvt. Ltd, which raised its Series B round of funding from Procam International and others in 2016.
Another peer Versant Online Solutions Pvt. Ltd, which operates and owns MeraEvents platform, is backed by OMICS International Pvt. Ltd.
