Mumbai : UTI Internet Fund may pump in Rs 4 crore in clicktickets.com for around 20-25 per cent stake. The fund managers have agreed in-principle to invest in the Chennai-based online ticket booking portal. A final decision, however, will be taken by the top officials in UTI within a month. clicktickets.com, a subsidiary of Cyber Globe (India) Pvt Ltd, has been recently valued by Ernst & Young at Rs 15 crore. The promoters, however, are not happy at the price and are planning to carry out a fresh valuation by a reputed Mumbai-based agency. Cyber Globe is planning to raise a total fund of Rs 10 crore for its three portals. While Rs 4 crore will be for clickcricket.com, another Rs 2 crore will be in the e-solutions provider, cyberidentity.com. The mandate for arranging the funds for clicktickets.com has gone to Millennium Capital Management. Test cricketer Ajay Jadeja holds five per cent stake in clickcricket.com and may be included in the board. "We wanted to be identified with a big name. Which is why weassociated with Mr Jadeja," a senior official in the company said. clickcricket.com will try to raise Rs 4 crore after the funding for clicktickets.com is arranged. Rediff.com has done due diligence and plans to pick up equity in clicktickets.com. The company had provided a debt of Rs 15 lakh in the initial stages. Now Rediff wants that debt to be converted into equity.
Cyber Globe and Rediff are in advanced talks and are negotiating over price, the source added. clicktickets will use the fresh funds to expand their existing activities and get into other areas of operations like railways and airlines ticket booking. Currently, it provides movie ticketing and has tied up with 120 cinema theatres across the country for this purpose. Ticketing services is currently being provided either cash on delivery basis and collection is done on theatre basis.
The company recently provided tickets to customers for the Sharjah cricket tournament. clicktickets.com provides a list of movies that are playing in different cities. For booking tickets, the customer will have to click on the theatre that is screening the movie he wants to watch. On the theatre page, the surfer can see the tickets that are available for booking. He has to click on the timing and date of the show he wants to book for. The tickets will be delivered within 24 hours. There is also an express delivery facility which will deliver the tickets within eight hours.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.