Amiando Founder Departs After Earn-Out, As Eventbrite Eyes-Up European Growth

Mike Butcher

Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

Tuesday, June 19th, 2012
felix

Well, that’s that. Prominent German entrepreneur Felix Haas, who started ticketing company Amiando and sold it to XING (Germany’s LinkedIn), has finished his earn-out period and is, as the phrase goes, out of here. Speaking exclusively to TechCrunch from Le Web London, he said “I’m going to fly planes for a bit. Then I’ll decide what to do.” (Haas flies light aircraft for fun).

In his stead comes Norbert Stockman, a seasoned manager in the ticketing industry, who becomes the new MD, and Julian de Grahl, currently a VP at XING.

Haas leaves in September with the other founders Dennis von Ferenczy, Sebastian Bärhold and Armin Bauer also off to “seek new challenges.”

It’s not amazingly auspicious timing for Amiando as the US-based Eventbrite has been scaling up in Europe recently. We understand Julia Hartz, co-founder of Eventbrite is currently in London searching for a UK MD for their European office of 10 people and counting.

However, Amiando still has over 100,000 event organisers worldwide, including Facebook, BMW, UNESCO, Telefónica O2 – and the annual Le Web conference among them.

Meanwhile Haas, who has dabbled in Angel investing in the last few months, says he is probably going to avoid becoming a full-time Angel and stay in the ‘serial entrepreneur’ category.


Company: amiando
Website: amiando.com
Launch Date: December 13, 2006

amiando is a pioneer in online event registration and ticketing. Since its foundation in 2006, amiando has become a leading software-as-a-service platform for professional events. amiando’s products help event organizers to reach a professional level of event organization which, until now, was only reserved for large corporations and event agencies. All tools are online-based and immediately available for use, without the need for software installation. Over 180,000 event organizers worldwide use amiando, including prestigious names such as Facebook,...

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Company: Eventbrite
Website: eventbrite.com
Launch Date: 2006
Funding: $140M

Eventbrite believes that anyone can be an event organizer. That’s why they offer tools that make it easy to sell tickets to all kinds of events whether it’s a photography class or a sold-out concert, an inspiring conference or an air-guitar competition. With Eventbrite, organizers can create a customizable event page; spread the word with social media; collect money; and gain visibility into attendees and sales. Eventbrite is for anyone planning or attending an event. It empowers event organizers to...

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