Welcome to the world of online movie renting, a hitherto unknown concept in India, where people would rather walk over to the neighborhood video guy. In conversation with Stuti Das of Dataquest, Raghav Kher, founder-CEO of India's first online movie rental company Seventymm.com talks about this novel concept and the potential of business

What is Seventymm all about?
Seventymm.com is India's first online movie rental service and offers the largest selection of original DVD/VCDs to its subscribers. By using this service, movie enthusiasts can enjoy an original print of their favorite films in the comfort of their homes and at a minimal cost without the hassle of picking-up and returning of movies. The portal offers its subscribers over 10,000 titles to choose from in various languages including Hindi, English, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Gujarati, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. World cinema and award winning documentaries are also part of the offering.

What made you start this venture? What kind of funding did you get?
When I visited India a year ago, I was amazed at how enthusiastic Indians are about movies. I was contemplating investing in a business and it was then that the whole idea of Seventymm germinated. It took me almost a year to research the proposition, study feasibility and put the back end in place before launching the venture.

We raised our first round in just 3 weeks time led by Draper Fischer Jurvetson (DFJ) who invested Rs 10 crore as initial funding. The next round of funding was raised in 2 weeks led by Matrix Partners India who invested Rs 32 crore in September. We were over subscribed in both the rounds.

Considering that movie rental is an unorganized business in India, how confident are you of Seventymm's success?
We look at this as a consolidation opportunity like any other retail sector in India. If you look at the history of movie rental business in the US during 1980s, it was very similar to the situation India is in today-with lots of neighborhood mom-and-pop video stores. But by the late '90s, the industry in the US had consolidated with 3 major players-Blockbuster, Hollywood video and Netflix (an online movie rental service). We believe the Indian movie rental industry will go through similar consolidation and being the first to enter, we will have the first mover advantage.

What is the business model of Seventymm?
The Indian entertainment industry is worth about $5.2 bn out of which the film industry alone is worth about $1.5 bn. Even though we have a tiny market share presently, we are growing rapidly and expect to reach $100 mn within 5 years.

The business model of Seventymm is very similar to that of Netflix, but yet definitely different. The portal offers its subscribers over 10,000 movie titles and two subscription plans to choose from. The movies are delivered at the doorstep with the freedom of keeping for as long as you like, with free pick up. Also, we offer informative content and easy to use site navigation along with a variety of search and browse features. Consumers can join the service by visiting the Seventymm portal and selecting the movie of their choice.

What is your vision for Seventymm.com?
We have over 7,500 customers today and expect to touch 50,000-75,000 subscribers by the end of next year. Currently operational in Bangalore, we have just launched in Delhi and are shortly planning on expand services to Mumbai as well. Post the Mumbai launch, we would expand to other metros like Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata by the end of this financial year. We will go to tier 2 cities from Q3 2007 including Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Mysore, Coimbatore, Cochin and Bhubhaneswar amongst others. Currently we get over 20 million hits a month, which is beyond our expectation. We are exploring various viral marketing initiatives to drive and increase further flow of traffic to our website.

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