Festival Travel Site Festicket Raises $2.7M Series A

Festicket, the UK startup that offers a travel booking and discovery site for festival goers, has closed a $2.7 million Series A round. The new funding, which adds to a $680,000 seed round raised in March 2013, is being led by European VCs, Wellington Partners and PROfounders Capital. Previous investors, Windcrest Partners, Playfair Capital, and Jacques-Antoine Granjon (founder of vente-privee.com), also participated.

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.

To that end, Festicket says the additional capital will be used to accelerate international expansion, grow the team and further develop its product, which combines festival event curation, social features, and a festival and related travel booking engine. Specifically, on the product side, it plans on building “inspirational features” and recommendation tools, helping to capitalise on what is says is a trend towards more people attending festivals.

Regards traction, Festicket now works with more than 200 music festivals globally, including the large festivals such as Tomorrowland, Ultra Europe, Leeds & Reading, and claims over 300,000 festival-goer members.