Indian “AI-native” and “discovery-first” ticketing platform thumpN has launched. The platform’s key feature is an AI agent named Shadow, which people can use to find live events “through natural conversation rather than traditional search”.

For example, “fans can ask Shadow for anything from ‘a stand-up show this weekend under Rs1,500’ to ‘something fun for the family on Sunday’, and the platform understands context, intent, and taste,” says CEO Varun Khare.

The idea for thumpN, says Khare, “started from a simple frustration” that “discovery today is fragmented across social feeds, algorithms, WhatsApp groups, and word of mouth”.

Shadow, which “learns your taste over time” according to director and strategic advisor Shreyas Srinivasan, is the company’s solution. The system “continuously refines recommendations based on evolving preferences, habits, and experience patterns”.

Currently in beta, thumpN prompts users to rank 16 categories, ranging from comedy, F&B, sports and theatre to music genres including blues, classical, hip-hop, house, indie, jazz, K-Pop, pop, Punjabi and rock, plus types of events such as conferences, exhibitions, festivals, flea markets and live screenings, as well as activities like art and craft, gaming, running and storytelling. The process involves assigning categories a ‘Love’, ‘Like’ or ‘Curious’ rating.

While it’s a pan-India platform, targeted at fans and organisers across metros as well as Tier-II and Tier-III markets, thumpN asks users to choose their location from a list of 11 major cities: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune.

They are then presented a selection of events in those spots. They can also look specifically for events in a particular Indian city or town.

ThumpN has been built by “a team with over two decades of experience shaping India’s live entertainment industry” along with “a network of contributing curators—artists, promoters, venue insiders, and genre specialists embedded across cities—whose on-the-ground signals continuously sharpen Shadow’s taste”.

Notably, Khare is the former COO of Paytm Insider, of which Srinivasan was the founder and former CEO. Also part of the team as head of brands and marketing is Meghana Bhogle, who was the head of IPs and touring at Paytm Insider, which was subsequently acquired by online food delivery platform Zomato in 2024.

Bhogle is also the conference director of the upcoming tenth edition of All About Music, which is among the major events listed on thumpN. Alaap Gosher, the CEO and co-founder of TM Ventures, which puts together the annual conference, is a strategic advisor to ThumpN.

The platform enters a fairly competitive space, which is somewhat of an oligopoly, with three major players, BookMyShow, District by Zomato, and Skillbox.

Each of these are also concert promoters, but Khare told the website Inc42 that thumpN doesn’t “want to produce or create our own IPs and compete with the ecosystem”. Instead, it will curate events “regardless of where they’re listed, believing that earning user trust is more important than limiting recommendations to a single platform”. 

According to Inc42, thumpN has raised a pre-seed funding round of $3.75m from a number of investors, including Patym’s co-founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma and its CFO Madhur Deora; Hyperlink Brand Solutions’ founder VG Jairam; wealth management firm Capitalmind’s co-founder Shray Chandra as well as singers Arijit Singh, Badshah and Sunidhi Chauhan, each of whom are on the roster of TM Ventures’s talent management company. 

The website reported that thumpN is building tools for event organisers through which they can get insights into “audience preferences, event demand, genre trends and consumer behaviour to help make better programming and marketing decisions”.

The company, which will bundle these capabilities into its existing ticketing commission model, expects them to ultimately translate into an increase in both the number of events listed on and ticket sales generated on the platform.

In an interview with Money Control, Khare said that he expects thumpN to “capture around 10% of the ticketed events market over time”.