Gewara, a Chinese online ticket service, announced RMB200 million yuan (around US$ 32 million) of Series C+ funding from China Media Capital (CMC), pushing the total amount of its C round financing to more than US$50 million together with US$20 million received from CHD Investment in Oct. 2013.
The capital will be used to improve its service and expand into third- and fourth-tier cities, citing Zhang Xuejing, CEO of the company.
According to data released of the company, Gewara has inked online ticket purchasing deals with more than 1,000 movie theaters across nearly 200 cities nationwide, covering nearly 70% of the domestic online movie ticket market. As of the end of this June, Gewara has recorded a turnover of more than RMB600 million and the firm expects this figure to reach RMB1.5 billion by the end of this year.
Zhang noted that they choose CMC over Chinese IT triumvirate BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent) because the former is a leading private equity fund which puts its primary focus on investment in cultural and media sector. CMC’s resources in film production and movie theaters will help the development of Gewara, he added.
CMC is established in April 2009 by founding partners like Shanghai Media Group and China Development Bank, with total assets under management of RMB 5 billion. The fund has acquired a 20% stake in the Chinese unit of big-screen theater technology company Imax together with FountainVest Partners April this year. It also holds a controlling stake in News Corps’ Chinese TV channels and partnered with DreamWorks Animation to set up Oriental DreamWorks.
image credit: Gewara