Global investment firm KKR will acquire a minority stake in BookMyShow, with the investment aimed at supporting the expansion of the ticketing platform's live entertainment business.

The transaction, reported by CNBC-TV18 Markets, is intended to back BookMyShow's continued growth in India's entertainment sector. The report did not disclose the size of the stake being acquired or the financial terms of the deal.

The deal brings a global alternative-asset heavyweight into BookMyShow's shareholder base, which over the years has included venture investors such as Accel and Elevation Capital as well as Network18's Capital18. In 2022, the company raised ₹550 crore from Bodhi Tree Systems, the investment platform set up by James Murdoch and former Star India chief Uday Shankar. Indian media have separately reported that BookMyShow has begun preparations for an eventual stock market listing.

The investment also comes amid a surge in demand for live entertainment in India, where stadium-scale international tours have become markedly more frequent since the pandemic. BookMyShow was the official ticketing partner for the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023 and handled ticket sales for Coldplay's January 2025 concerts in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, a run that drew overwhelming demand and led the platform to publicly caution buyers against paying above face value on unauthorized resale sites.

About BookMyShow

BookMyShow, operated by parent company Bigtree Entertainment, was founded in 1999 by Ashish Hemrajani. Headquartered in Mumbai, the platform has grown into one of India's largest online ticketing and entertainment destinations, selling tickets for movies, concerts, sports events, plays, and other live events. Beyond ticketing, the company operates a live entertainment arm that stages and promotes concerts, comedy shows, and similar live experiences. The company's financials have tracked the live-events rebound: regulatory filings reported by Indian media show Bigtree Entertainment posted operating revenue of roughly ₹1,276 crore and a net profit of about ₹86 crore in the fiscal year ended March 2024.

About KKR

KKR & Co. Inc., founded in 1976 and headquartered in New York, is a global investment firm with a multi-asset platform spanning private equity, credit, real assets, and capital markets, and it manages more than $600 billion in assets. The firm has a long-standing presence in India, where it has been investing since 2006 across sectors including technology, infrastructure, and financial services; its past Indian deals include the 2020 purchase of a 1.17% stake in Reliance Retail Ventures for ₹5,550 crore. Whether BookMyShow moves ahead with its reported listing plans, and how the company deploys KKR's backing to scale its live entertainment business, are the developments most closely tied to this transaction.

Source: CNBC-TV18 Markets