GoldSeat to raise $3mn towards tech, workforce expansion

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GoldSeat, a licensed on-the-go offline entertainment app for travel services, announced plans to raise funding worth USD 3 million to further expand its operations in India.

Following its inception in2016, GoldSeat has raised USD 160K worth funding, which was utilised to develop the technology and set up operations in India.

Currently, GoldSeat has its application running across 250 buses which includes busses of Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation and also other private players across Northern and Western regions of India including Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and will soon be available down south expanding its services pan India in near future.

The company is also in talks with multiple airlines and agencies which handle media inside the trains, to be materialised over the next 12-14 months.

"We are on the threshold of redefining the travel entertainment space in India and establishing ourselves as the go-to platform by further expanding our pan India presence. We are extremely excited as we believe the new round of funding will provide further stimulus to our growth which we plan to utilise to enhance the technology, workforce and marketing," said Gaurav Kapahi, Founder and CEO, GoldSeat.

The offline on-the-go entertainment sector in India is largely unorganised, with players providing unlicensed content to the viewers. Market size is estimated to be 660 million passengers with approximately 500 million traveling by buses, and is expected to grow at a rate of 15 percent CAGR.

"While travelling by road, it's only 40 percent of the route that has internet connectivity and only 10 percent or less has 3G or 4G connection. We aim to enhance the experience of on-the-go offline entertainment to another level through technological advancement, bringing an overall dynamical change in the entertainment and travel industry. The next round of funding will enable us to further enhance the customer experience," said Nishchal Khetarpal, Co-Founder, GoldSeat.

The entire GoldSeat entertainment profile is linked to a device installed in the bus which acts as a server to all the licensed content available for the travelers. The mobile app which is just 3MB in size can be downloaded from either Google Play or App store when the travelers boards the bus and login using their Facebook id.

The app offers on-the-go offline entertainment, multi - band network, unlimited movies and TV shows streaming, HD videos, offline media streaming, and free WiFi. Travelers can connect to GoldSeat WiFi too, which is a multi-band network and is enabled with the URA filtering technology, which filters the kind of content which can be accessed through the technology and is completely free for passengers.