Food delivery company Zomato is in talks to acquire Paytm's movie ticketing and events division, according to reports.

The deal could value Paytm's vertical at Rs 1,600-1,750 crore. If claims against movie exhibitors are added, the valuation could go up to Rs 200 billion.

Paytm Movies and Paytm Insider are being merged to bring in synergies between the two teams. The idea is to build this as a single unit; Zomato’s interest in this segment has been there for a while so it fits in very well.

Zomato is trying to capture consumer demand in categories such as food, grocery and entertainment.

If the deal goes through, it will be the largest acquisition for Zomato, which acquired Uber Eats in 2020 and fast commerce platform Blinkit (later Grofers) in 2021 for R44.7 billion.

Noida-based One97 Communications, which operates Paytm, has started promoting event and movie ticket sales inorganically. It acquired a majority stake in Insider.in, an online ticketing and events platform backed by event management company Only Much Louder (OML), for just over Rs 35 crore in 2017.

A year later, Paytm acquired Chennai-based online ticketing platform TicketNew to strengthen its entertainment ticketing business; OML was later monetized to become part of KKR-backed platform Emerald Media.

Paytm Movie is the closest competitor to BookMyShow (BMS), the segment leader in movie ticketing. Mumbai-based BMS, whose investors include venture capital funds such as Reliance Industries, Accel and Elevation, posted operating revenue of Rs 97.6 billion and profit of Rs 85.72 billion in FY23.

BMS is in the process of finalizing a financing round with private equity firm KKR, valuing the company founded by Ashish Hemrajani at R750 billion, is in the process of finalizing a financing round to buy out existing shareholders.