We keep hearing about the milestones and challenges that startups keep facing in their initial years. One of the most prominent ones is that creative entrepreneurs and businesses have to struggle a lot to monetize their events with also bringing the audience to these events.
Therefore to empower these entrepreneurs to explore their endeavors and grow their business while taking it to the customers across the globe, Santosh Panda launched Explara in 2008. Explara helps creative entrepreneurs and small businesses to monetize from events, online selling, community, and crowdfunding.
Explara – Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Explara |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | Bengaluru, India |
| Sector | Online Ticketing, Event Promotion, SaaS |
| Founders | Ashok Kumar, Santosh Panda |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Legal Name | Signure Technologies Pvt. Ltd. |
| Website | explara.com |
About Explara and How it Works
Explara – Target Market Size
Founders of Explara and team
Explara – Startup Launch
Explara – Startup Challenges
Explara – Business Model and Revenue Model
Explara – Competitors
Explara – Funding and Investors
Explara – Acquisitions and Mergers
Explara – Growth
Explara – Future Plans
Check out this List of Top Startups in Bangalore | Best Bangalore Startups
About Explara and How it Works
Explara is a SaaS (Software as a Service) based platform that sells tickets in different event categories like sports, travel, and food, and has tied up multiple theatres and multiplexes in states such as Maharashtra and Gujarat. Explara is a great combination of an event platform combined with a me-too ticketing site which is a boon for event organizers.
So ideally, Explara takes care of pre-event, event-day & post-event needs of the organizations. Cutting the long story short, it covers the end-to-end needs of an event and therefore becomes the go-to place for organizations that want to create mega-events.
Explara has events majorly in:
- Biz & tech
- Learning & classes
- Entertainment & shows
- Sports & outdoor segments.
Explara offers the following products:
- Event Ticketing & Registration
- Online Selling & Payment Solution
- Crowdfunding & Donation
- Community & Membership
Explara’s Enterprise Products ranges in:
- Event Management Cloud
- Membership Cloud
- Event Day Mobile App
- Submission Software
Explara – Target Market Size
According to a RedSeer report, the online ticketing market in India has recorded quarterly revenue of $28 million.
Moreover, RedSeer’s Online Ticket Market Updates states that 50% of the industry revenue has been coming from movies, with the next big contributor being events. Sporting events, concerts, and other live entertainment shows were the significant money-making aspects of the almost $330 million in revenue generated by the online ticketing industry in 2017.
With the big guns relentlessly acquiring smaller competitors in this domain, according to Wikipedia, a CAGR of 20% is expected in the online ticketing industry by 2020. According to reports, the global online event ticketing market size is expected to reach USD 67.99 billion by 2025.
Relevant read: BookMyShow – Saving You The Hassle Of Booking Entertainment Tickets
Founders of Explara and team
Explara is co-founded by Santosh Panda and Ashok Kumar.
Santosh has an MBA from Alliance Manchester Business School and is CEO and Co-founder of Explara. Before launching Explara which was formerly known as Ayojak, he was a member of the board of advisors of Target and was a Senior Software Engineer at eBay.
Explara founder Santosh has a decade of diverse experience in the software industry in the UK, USA, Finland, and India. He has extensive experience in product development, consulting for FTSE 100 companies, and start-up companies across the globe. Some of the organizations for whom Santosh, owner of Explara, was involved in building products are BBC iPlayer, eBay UK, Cyclone Commerce, OnStation, William Hill, Spoke Software, and Vodafone.
Ashok has an MBA from the University of Bradford. He is the co-founder and Vice President – Operations at Explara. Before Explara, he was a tech lead at MindTree Ltd.
Explara – Startup Launch
When Santosh launched Explara in 2008, he did see that this industry was an unorganized marketplace. But fortunately, it started through a supplier marketplace route. This means that the startup is offering a robust platform paired with a set of event ticketing/registration & management solutions to make it easy on the event organizers & promoters.
Explara – Startup Challenges
One of the biggest milestones that Explara faced was an intense competition. And to combat that and to engage more users on its platform, it has devoted consistent efforts and has been seen innovating in the existing features and also launching new and exciting features from time to time.
Going along the same lines, Explara came up with a solution for solving the event discovery on the social horizon by launching a new feature called “Event Discovery Solution”. This new feature brings all the events at one platform of the users’ interest. Also, one such initiative in the past was when Explara had launched a feature called Community Solution platform.
Also read: MeraEvents: Redefining Event Ticketing And Management
Explara – Business Model and Revenue Model
As we know, Explara is a cloud-hosted event solutions platform, it mainly focuses on four service areas namely event ticketing/registration, payment processing (online, offline), merchandise selling, event marketing, and logistics.
Now, a user can create an account on the platform for free and organize free events at zilch cost. And if you’re wondering how does Explara make money? This is how. Explara charges a nominal fee applicable when the event organizer uses the platform for a paid event/conference/meet-up.
Explara – Competitors
The top competitors of Explara are Townscript, MeraEvents, BookMyShow, KyaZoonga, Nearify, Magnet, AllEvents.in and Events High.
“There has been competition from the day we launched in 2009 to date. Our focus has been to remain focussed on customer needs and build to solve their pain points. We as an organization believe in the culture of heads down work-in-progress models. Hence we didn’t pay much attention to how competitors were doing”, said Santosh Panda, the founder of Explara.
Also read: Online Marketplace for Venue Booking ‘VenueLook’ Forays into end-to-end Event Planning Services
Explara – Funding and Investors
Explara has raised a total of $486.4K in funding. Here is a list of all the funding rounds:
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 2013 | Venture Round | – | HBS Alumni Angels, Srijan Capital, Blume Ventures, Rajan Anandan, Kishore Warrier |
| November 2015 | Seed Round | $486.4K | Hyderabad Angels, Ness Wadia |
The investors include Harvard Business School (HBS) Alumni Angels, Srijan Capital, Blume Ventures and angel investors including Google India MD Rajan Anandan, Kishore Warrier, businessman Ness Wadia, Singapore Angel Network and Hyderabad Angels.
Explara – Acquisitions and Mergers
In April 2015, Explara acquired IndianStage. It is an event ticketing platform for performing arts. With this, Explara was all set to add more cities to its kitty with access to the theatre and entertainment segments.
Also read: BunnyBash- Making Event Hosting Effortless
Explara – Growth
- More than 20,000 suppliers
- Serves 5000 events every month.
- Handles more than 1,000 transactions a day
- Has executed more than 50,000 events
Explara – Future Plans
“Our current focus is India, though we are digitally growing in other countries. We intend to serve India fully before we look for our physical business presence in other countries”, concluded Santosh Panda.