From its launch in March 2006, when it had Vasundhara Das as its first customer, to Soha Ali Khan, its 70,000th one, Seventymm has come a long way in the organised movie rental arena. In a span of two years, the rental company that started with ten thousand titles has 18,000 titles across a range of genres covering English, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Bhojpuri, Oriya, Punjabi and Rajasthani. Seventymm that started operations in Bangalore now has its offices in six cities across India with the sole aim to cover several more cities in a couple of years.The company that operates in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Chandigarh is expected to widen its base in cities like Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad. “Right now we have built a subscriber base of 70,000 members and in a matter of five years we aim to touch a 4 million subscriber base also aiming to make our presence felt in 40 cities across India,” said Subhanker Sarker, COO, Seventymm.

The company has made it possible for movie enthusiasts to enjoy an original print of their favourite film at home, at a low cost, without the hassle of pick-ups and drop-offs. Talking about World Cinema and new Hindi films, Sarker adds “We have tied up with Palador for all their titles on World Cinema. As per films from Bollywood is concerned, we would definitely focus Hindi films in a big way on this genre, since 60 per cent of cinema content movement in India is Bollywood.”

The company raised $2 million in November 2005 from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and in 2006 they received their second round of financing of over $7 million from Matrix Partners. The company plans to use a hub and spoke model to enter new Tier II cities in India, where Delhi may be the hub for Jaipur, Agra and Lucknow and Mumbai may cater to Pune and Ahmedabad. The company’s targeted revenue is Rs 100 crore (approx $25 million) by 2009 and expects 25 per cent of it to come from Tier II cities. “We have raised around $10 million through separate rounds of venture capital funding led by Matrix Partners India, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and ePlanet Ventures. We will be using this capital for movie acquisitions (a rental license arrangement for one, two or three years) and brand building. The fourth quarter of this year will see an investment of Rs 80-100 million in mass media campaigns, which include both online and offline marketing,” avers Sarker. The company is simultaneously building its brand and has roped in Rediffusion DYR, Kolkata, which will be help in building the brand. “We aim to acquire customers through various forms of advertising that include out-of-home, mobile, online and also cinema advertising,” Sarker adds.

The company offers its customers two plans: the Basic plan that allows subscribers to rent up to six movies every month, receive one movie at a time and return the movies in 3-4 days. The Unlimited plan delivers two movies at a time, an unlimited number of movies in a month and allows subscribers to keep the movies for as long as they like. Its main competition is from many companies the latest being the recently-launched BigFlix, besides offline DVD parlours. “Though we see this competition as healthy, we are in no way bothered for we started of early and have, through our services, managed to please our customers who come back repeatedly asking for our services,” adds Sarker.