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thumpN, an AI-native discovery and ticketing platform, has raised over USD 3.75 million in a pre-seed funding.
Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm CFO Madhur Deora, Capitalmind co-founder Shray Chandra, Hyperlink Brand Solutions founder VG Jairam and music icons Arijit Singh, Sunidhi Chauhan and Badshah have invested in the startup.
Founded by Varun Khare, Shreyas and Alaap, thumpN is looking to tap into the growing popularity of live events. The company says that with over 40,000 live events across 319 cities each year, people are overwhelmed by choices whereas organisers struggle to cut through. Discovery is also a big challenge as it is fragmented across social media, algorithms and group chats.
The company is betting on its AI-driven platform, Shadow, a conversational AI agent designed to help fans find highly contextual live experiences through natural conversation rather than traditional search. Shadow understands intent, maintains conversational context and reasons across events from multiple sources.
Under the hood, the platform has 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.
“This started from a simple frustration,” said Varun Khare, CEO of thumpN. “Discovery today is fragmented across social feeds, algorithms, WhatsApp groups and word of mouth. The explosion of India’s live entertainment market, combined with the shift toward conversational and AI-native consumer behaviour, has created an opportunity to rethink discovery from the ground up. We’re building thumpN to feel natural. Fans can ask Shadow for anything from ‘a stand-up show this weekend under ₹1,500’ to ‘something fun for the family on Sunday and the platform understands context, intent and taste. At the same time, organisers get better infrastructure to grow and strengthen their position. thumpN only succeeds if the ecosystem does.”
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