Etohum is announcing its new investment, the Pakistani Startup Bookme which allows to buy cinema and bus tickets via their web and mobile applications. Bookme was also one of the selected startups for mentorship and training program before Startup Istanbul Event.
Bookme is founded by Faizan Aslam, CEO of Macro Pak Solutions, in Lahore, Pakistan in March 2014. Bookme has a team of 9 people and aims to become online booking destination for Pakistanis. Bookme started at small scale but now own it has three offices in major cities of the country and launching services in Islamabad on 1st Nov. Bookme has also more than 10 API partnerships that will help reach a wider audience.
They’ve already sold 93000+ tickets until today and they get 10% of ticket price. There is one competitor for bus ticketing in the market now, Rocket Internet Company, Click Bus, but they have not any competitor for cinema ticketing. Returning customer rate is %37 which is a good for a new startup.
With this app, you can get all the information of the happenings within the country, up coming events, transport and cinema ticketing.
Faizan says about the investment:
“I was fortunate enough to get selected for Startup Istanbul last month and it was there that I first met with the Etohum team and its founder. What followed were a series of meetings not only with the team but with some of their board of directors as well. We were in constant contact even after I came back and eventually got around to finalizing the terms of the investment formally about two weeks ago.”
Founder of Etohum, Burak Büyükdemir says:
”Pakistan is a very valuable and important market for us; not only for Etohum, but also for Turkey because of its talented and creative internet-oriented entrepreneurs. This means a great deal of potential for Pakistan and the whole region. Looking back to the region’s biggest startup and networking event, Startup Istanbul, I recall many keen and bold Pakistani participants with whom I had a chance to talk with. As the Founder of Bookme.pk, Faizan is undoubtedly one those enthusiastic Pakistani entrepreneurs. We are indeed very happy to invest on his and his team’s amazing work. Pakistan’s biggest accelerator, PlanX, is also very good at supporting value-added startups like Bookme.pk. On this wise, we also would like to congratulate them, once again, as our business partner for their great commitment. As Etohum, the leading accelerator and seed investor organization in Turkey, we already invested in 40 internet-startups and will keep on investing in 10 different startups on an annual basis. Apart from Turkish startups, we also have two US-based startups and Bookme.pk is our first Pakistani startup investment. We wish Bookme.pk a bright and successful future in the Pakistani startup ecosystem and hope that it would become a model for the next-generation entrepreneurs in Pakistan.”
Bookme lets you buy all sorts of tickets on the go. It has three key areas, which separates it from all ticketing platforms in world.
1. Data and profiling: Bookme maintain record of customers and do intelligent profiling that helps in targeted marketing.
2. Platform with reach: They build API’s and give to diverse set of groups like banks, telcos, mobile wallets, e-commerce portals, etc. This enables ticket buying be as simple as sending text.
3. Combining services: Bookme enables whole new experience of ticket buying where they combine different services like arranging cab or booking restaurant table.
