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MUMBAI: Seventymm, a movie DVD/VCD rental company,
is planning to invest $15 million (around Rs
637 million) over the next five years as it
targets a nationwide presence in the home video
segment.
The
company has so far raised approximately $10
million from venture capital firms which it
will use in movie acquisitions and brand building.
We
have raised around $10 million through separate
rounds of venture capital funding led by Matrix
Partners India, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and
ePlanet Ventures. We will be using this capital
for movie acquisitions (a rental license arrangement
for one, two or three years) and brand building.
The fourth quarter of this year will see an
investment of Rs 80-100 million in mass media
campaigns, which include both online and offline
marketing, says Seventymm chief operating
officer Subhanker Sarker.
Seventymm
has roped in Rediffusion DYR Kolkata who will
be help in building the brand. "We aim
to acquire customers through various forms of
advertising that include out-of-home, mobile,
online and also cinema advertising, Sarker
adds.
The
company at present has 18,000 titles across
a range of genres covering English, Hindi, Marathi,
Gujrati, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam,
Telugu, Bhojpuri, Oriya, Punjabi and Rajasthani.
We have tied up with Palador for all their
film titles. Also, since 60 per cent of cinema
content movement in India is Bollywood, our
concentration will definitely be more on this
genre, says Sarker.
The
company, which currently operates in Mumbai,
New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and
Chandigarh, aims to touch a 4 million subscriber
base in five years.
Currently
we have built a subscriber base of 70,000 members
and we aim to amplify this number to 4 million
in the next 5 years. By the fourth quarter of
this fiscal, we will be expanding to Kolkata,
Pune and Ahmedabad. We aim to be in 40 cities
by the end of 2009, elaborates Sarker.
Unlike
its competitors, the company does not have any
plans of setting up offline stores and believes
that its home delivery and online store model
will definitely fetch more customers
for itself.
People
use online stores because they know that they
can get the movie they want delivered at their
doorstep. So, anyways they will not visit the
store if they can avail the drop at door
delivery model sitting at home, Sarker
says.
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