Playtoome, a startup that offers live online concerts of popular artists has raised funding of Rs 2 crore as part of its Pre-Series A round from Venture Catalysts and an array of angel investors.
These include serial entrepreneur Arihant Patni, Mr. Bhaskar Raju Konduru, Founding member of Red Bus & current CTO at Housejoy, Mr. Goverdhan Singh Jamwal, Chairman Kunwar Viyogi Memorial Trust, a philanthropist and Mr Akhileshwaran Krishnan—Group CFO at Apollo Hospitals. The only other fund raised by Playtoome was the seed funding of Rs 1.5 crore. No major VC was involved in that round.
Playtoome’s model involves enlisting music enthusiasts on its platform and based on their requests and preferences and the whole experience in interactive in nature.
“Playtoome was launched with a singular vision – to transform the live entertainment space by connecting audiences with their favorite artists through technology and enabling more interactive and immersive live entertainment experiences. The investment from Venture Catalysts gives a big boost to that vision. This association provides us with the capital infusion necessary to scale our operations to one hundred shows a month, and also unlocks access to key mentorship and networking opportunities critical to the growth of any emerging start-up,” S Keerthivasan, Founder and CEO of Playtoome said.
The 2-year old online entertainment portal boasts of a customer base of 50,000 and it has a program to assist the artists by boosting their incomes through its platform. The current numbers for Playtoome read just one live concert per day and with the infusion of funds through the fresh funding led by Venture Catalysts, Playtoome hopes to take this number to 100 concerts per month.
There are over 3500 artists associated with the startup. The investors feel the technology adopted by the company and the domain knowledge and experience the promoter Keerthivasan brings to the table will enable Playtoome to grow its business and attain higher levels of achievement. Technology is applied in hooking up the artists from wherever they are and their fans can enjoy the performance on their devices.
Palytoome is also a device neutral platform; the customer can view the concerts on his/her mobile, tablet, laptop, PC or even through a smart TV. The fee paid by the customer per concert would be quite meagre when compared to what would spend for a physical presence in a concert hall and add to that the trouble in driving down and finding a parking place for the vehicle, you have the perfect alternative in Playtoome.