Explara

Explara
Private
Founders Santosh Panda, Ashok Kumar
Headquarters India
Area served
 Worldwide
Key people
 Santosh Panda, Ashok Kumar
Services Online Event Ticketing
Website explara.com

Explara is an online event ticketing company.[1] Established in 2008, Explara is an India-based company [2] having presence in Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai and New Delhi as well. Internationally the company has partners located in UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and Philippines.[3]

Founders

Explara was conceptualized by Santosh Panda (CEO Explara)[4] and co founded by Ashok kumar. Having done his masters at Manchester Business School, Panda has worked for eBay, BBC Broadcast and UPCO. Ashok Kumar [5] is the co founder and VP operations at the company.

Panda conceived the idea while listening to a south Asian radio.[6] An ad looking for venues for an event gave him the idea to tap the huge potential of online event ticketing and registration solutions.[7] While working in online marketplace in the year 2009, he had set up a recruitment solutions company in Pune a year earlier. Intrigued by the opportunity, he asked his employees to check on upcoming events in India. Spotting a chance to diversify, he renamed his venture as Ayojak.com and launched an online ticketing and event discovery business.[8] It was primarily launched as a venue and event listing portal, however owing to the strong interest from the event organizers for an ‘Event Registration and ticketing Solution’ the concept was revamped to cater to the increasing demand in the market.

Funding

The startup has raised seed-funding from a bunch of angel investors including Google India's RajanAnandan and early-stage venture firm Blume Ventures.In February last year, the company received an undisclosed amount in funding from Harvard Business School (HBS) Alumni Angels, Srijan Capital and Blume Ventures. Google India MD RajanAnandan [9] and angel investor Kishore Warrier also participated in the round in their personal capacity.[10] As per the agreement, HBS Alumni Angels’ co-founder Ravi Gururaj joined its board while RajanAnandan came in as an advisor.

Products

Started 5 years back, Explara has in place a cloud-hosted event solutions platform and focuses on four service areas—event ticketing/registration, payment processing (online, offline),[11] merchandise selling, event marketing and logistics.[12] One can create an account on Explara for free and organise free events without paying anything.But a nominal charge is applicable when organizer use the platform for a paid event/conference/meet-up. The Explara’s Apps Marketplace (in Beta stage) aims to extend apps [13] and tools for pre-event, event-day and post-event’s end-to-end needs.

Acquisitions

On 30 April 2015, Explara made its first ever acquisitions by acquiring an event ticketing company IndianStage.in for an undisclosed amount.[14]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.businesswireindia.com/news/news-details/microsoft-accelerator-graduates-2013-india-summer-batch/35729
  2. ↑ http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-07-05/news/40391851_1_google-india-ravi-gururaj-anandan
  3. ↑ http://www.medianama.com/2014/06/223-explara-international-rollout/
  4. ↑ http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-03-14/news/48222455_1_new-company-startups-entrepreneurs
  5. ↑ http://www.indianweb2.com/2014/08/short-interview-explara-founders-online-event-management-site/
  6. ↑ http://e27.co/radio-spot-led-explara-20140904/
  7. ↑ http://www.zdnet.com/article/india-startup-offers-events-ticketing-tools/
  8. ↑ http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/explaracom-launches-event-marketplace-solutions-to-serve-end-to-end-event-management-236560391.html
  9. ↑ http://www.nextbigwhat.com/ayojak-funding-297/
  10. ↑ http://techcircle.vccircle.com/2014/01/17/angel-funded-explara-com-in-talks-to-raise-up-to-3m-in-series-a/
  11. ↑ http://finance.yahoo.com/news/explara-com-launches-event-marketplace-153000797.html
  12. ↑ http://newsodrome.com/mobile_news/ayojak-partners-with-suvidhaa-for-offline-payments-22441905
  13. ↑ http://www.medianama.com/2014/03/223-explara-mpos-event-ticketing/
  14. ↑ http://www.indianweb2.com/2015/04/explara-acquires-events-ticketing-startup-indianstage-in/

External links

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