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Mobile digital movie theatre (MDMT) start-up PictureTime has secured ₹25 croresat an undisclosed valuation in a Pre Series A financing round from a group of HNIs led by Ajay Relan, Founder-Chairman, CX Partners.
This follows the initial seed funding by PictureTime Chairman Rohit Chand, Ashish Gupta and Sanjeev Agrawal of Helion Ventures, Asim Ghosh (ex-Vodafone India CEO) and Abhinav Sinha of Eight Road Ventures.
The funding will be used to expand PictureTime’s mobile digiplex cinema theatres to 100 operational units by March 2019.
“Our aim is to use technology to not only provide high quality entertainment to rural India, but to also use our mobile digiplex cinema theatres as an outreach vehicle to generate awareness on educational and government schemes on initiatives around Digital India, Skill India and Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan. We are also trying to curb the problems of piracy in remote rural areas by releasing new movies simultaneously in the locations we are present in,” said Sushil Chaudhary, Founder-CEO, PictureTime.
Established in 2015, PictureTime is a mobile digiplex cinema theatre concept specially designed for rural India offering a high-quality HD interactive screens, live chat function and 5.1 Dolby surround sound. The company has 10 mobile digiplex cinema theatres covering Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. A mobile digiplex cinema theatre unit with a fireproof inflatable canopy that can accommodate 120 viewers.
Within two hours, the air-conditioned mobile digiplex cinema theatre can be made fully functional, complete with seating arrangements and digital projectors with surround sound.
The tickets for shows are priced between ₹30 and ₹50.
Ajay Relan, Founder Chairman, CX Partners, said: “PictureTime provides unique dual benefits to the rural population - a state-of-the-art cinema experience as well as an outreach medium for both social messaging and private advertising all under one umbrella. By offering low-cost mobile cinema halls, the venture will help address the severe cinema theatre crunch by increasing the screen count in remote parts of the country.”
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