Festicket, the UK site that aims to make booking and attending a music festival akin to the experience of purchasing a package holiday online, has raised $680k in a new round of funding.
Its new backers are the French early-stage fund Kima Ventures, Jacques-Antoine Granjon (CEO of vente-privee.com), London’s #1 Seed and Playfair Capital, and the New York-based VC firm Windcrest Partners.
Festicket says the new capital will be used to further develop the platform and extend the range of products that it’s able to offer, as well as to bolster sales and marketing, including key hires, and to accelerate its plans for European expansion.
Founded in early 2012 by Zacharie Sabban (CEO) and Jonathan Younes (CTO), Festicket wants to make attending festivals as easy as booking a package holiday. Users browse the curated directory of music festivals and, in a single purchase, can book a festival package — tickets, transport and accommodation — therefore eliminating much of the pain associated with attending festivals, which often involves dealing with multiple providers and a disparate itinerary. By consolidating this process, the broader aim is to open up the festival market to an even wider audience.
Partnering with more than 40 top music festivals across Europe, the startup makes money by taking a 20 percent commission on each part of the packages it sells (i.e. tickets, accommodation, transport, extras). It claims an average basket price of around €290, and says it has 27,000 active members of which 73% are from UK, France and Germany.

In addition to its consumer-facing site, Festicket has recently added a B2B element to its strategy by deepening its partnerships with festivals by offering packages directly on their official websites via a white-label version. It’s already helping to power the sites of the UK’s Camden Crawl festival, Denmark’s open air festival Roskilde, Monegros Desert Festival in Spain, Gnaoua in Morocco, and OFF Festival in Poland.
Prior to today’s newly announced investment, Festicket was funded by friends and family to the tune of £70k (~$105k), bringing the total raised by the London startup to approximately $785,000. Meanwhile, #1 Seed’s Raj Ramanandi has joined the company’s Board.
Festicket provides a unique online service to live music fans, where you can book a full package for your next festival trip. Festicket is designed to save you time and money. By providing festival tickets, as well as travel package offers – flights, trains, shuttles and hotels – Festicket makes your next trip a simple and pleasant one.
The Kima Ventures fund was started in 2010 by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. Kima’s goal is to support and finance innovative companies with seed capital all over the world. Kima Ventures promotes the growth of startups, supporting them in the fastest and most effective ways : By financing the early stages of development, By pooling their resources, and By providing access to its network of partners and relationships around the world. Kima Ventures partners with the best business angels and venture, funds, and invests primarily...
#1seed is an early stage investor founded by Raj Ramanandi and Lee Pickrell, #1seed invests at seed level (50-300k) and helps to build awesome tech companies. At #1seed we invest our own money in a hands-on way, funding, mentoring and connecting startups to our network. We are entrepreneur-investors who have taken companies from idea to exit, and we aim to help startups achieve similar, if not greater feats. If you are a startup seeking investment contact us...
Playfair Capital is run by founder Federico Pirzio-Biroli. PlayFair Capital is a London based investment firm, primarily investing in seed level, early stage technology-based startups. PlayFair is interested in big data, mobile, and developing country oriented, philanthropically minded ventures. Playfair has £3.3 million of capital and has invested £1 million. Coompanies: Duedil, Flattr, OnDevice Research, Mobius Motors, Mixlr, Stratajet, Fourth & Main. Investments span between £25,000 and £300,000, for anything between 6 per cent and 30 per cent equity in each...
Windcrest Partners is a principal investment firm specializing in venture capital investment. The firm also invests in public equity. It seeks to invest in energy, network games, healthcare administration, and internet technology. Windcrest Partners was founded by Mr. Michael Erwin Gellert in 1967 and is based in New York, United States. Windcrest Partners has two affiliate companies: Windcrest Partners Public Investments, LP and Windcrest Partners II, LP.
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