Events and venue booking startup Wow Venue raises $1.5 Mn strategic fund

Wow Venue, a premium venue booking platform for weddings, corporate, social and MICE (Meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) events, has raised $1.5 million fresh funding from strategic investor Pranav Pathak.

The two years old Mumbai-based startup will deploy the capital towards growth, marketing, hiring skilled resources and expansion of the brand including MICE portfolio.

Floated by Ganesh Rai, Wow Venue reduces the clutter in process of searching, choosing, and booking the perfect venue for events.

Wow Venue has deployed a dedicated venue expert to further ease the booking experience and claims to provide a cost-effective venue booking solution with more than 2,000 venues across 12 countries it operates in.

In India, it is operational in 11 cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Pune.

The startup's flagship product - Wow productions - offers end to end event management services from conceptualising, planning, artist management, production, and execution for destination weddings, corporate and social events.

Apart from the event and venue segment, Wow Venue has set a plan to foray into the tourism sector with a dedicated digital platform for air ticketing, hotel booking, and customised holiday packages worldwide, said the company in a press statement.

Of late, Indian consumer internet startups such as Oyo, Treebo and most recently Zomato had entered the event booking space.

While Zomato is launching Zomaland, a multi-city food carnival studded with street performances, pop-up restaurants, and food exhibitions, Oyo started a full stack model - Auto Party By Oyo - that will offer to host a wedding, party or conference.

In May this year, Treebo acquired travel start-up Events High, which operates an online discovery platform for local events and activities. The Bengaluru-based startup operates independently under Treebo.