Seatwave, the European aftermarket ticket exchange, is trumpeting somewhat of a landmark today, announcing that one million tickets have been traded through the site. However, it’s a number that is brought sharply into focus when you consider how well funded the UK startup is – thought to be a massive $53 million – and that it’s been operating for coming up to four years. That number doesn’t seem to have quite the same wow-factor now.
Like similar marketplaces, Seatwave, which operates in the UK and several places in mainland Europe, provides what it describes as a fan-to-fan ticket exchange, essentially an aftermarket where people can buy and sell tickets to theatre, sport and music events. The company’s pitch, however, is that its online marketplace ensures that ticket sales and purchases are 100% safe, presumably with proven mechanisms in place to counteract fraud and unreliable buyers and sellers. → Read More
Seatwave, the UK-based upstart behind the eponymous marketplace for secondary tickets, has landed $17 million in Series D funding led by Accel Partners with Atlas Venture, Mangrove Capital Partners, Fidelity Ventures and Adinvest joining the round, writes Atlas partner Fred Destin on his blog.
Recently named Europe’s fastest growing digital media company by investment bank GP Bullhound, Seatwave allows fans to trade theatre, sport and music tickets online and thus competes (hard) with TicketMaster (IAC), StubHub (eBay) and that other well-funded startup in the ticket reselling space, Viagogo. → Read More
Seatwave, the UK-based upstart behind the eponymous marketplace for secondary tickets, has landed $17 million in Series D funding led by Accel Partners with Atlas Venture, Mangrove Capital Partners, Fidelity Ventures and Adinvest joining the round, writes Atlas partner Fred Destin on his blog.
Recently named Europe’s fastest growing digital media company by investment bank GP Bullhound, Seatwave allows fans to trade theatre, sport and music tickets online and thus competes (hard) with TicketMaster (IAC), StubHub (eBay) and that other well-funded startup in the ticket reselling space, Viagogo. → Read More
So Viagogo has raised another $15 million and hooked in former tennis champions Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf both as board members / investors as well as advisors to help it push its secondary ticketing market into Europe. The funding now gives it $70 million of external investment. That’s some war-chest.
Agassi and Graf invested in the common-stock round alongside existing shareholders Index Ventures, Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA; German media mogul Herbert Kloiber; and international financier Jacob Rothschild, via his family’s interests. The new funding values Viagogo at more than $300 million, although I hear from sources that they were aiming for a $30 million round.
The company currently serves ticket seekers in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and the Netherlands. Founder Eric Baker says Viagogo has annual sales close to a $100 million annually and expects those figures to double or triple this year. Viagogo, which charges buyers a 10% fee and sellers a 15% fee on each confirmed transaction, handled $100 million in transactions in 2008. → Read More
Ticket reseller Seatwave has taken $25 million Series C in a round led by Fidelity Ventures that included Atlas Venture, Mangrove Capital Partners and Adinvest. Total funding for Seatwave to date is $36 million. The London based Seatwave, like StubHub (acquired by eBay for $310 million) and TicketsNow (acquired by Ticketmaster for $265 million) resells tickets to major events. The company was founded in 2006 by Joe Cohen, formerly with Ticketmaster and Match.com. Seatwave launched ticket exchanges in Germany, Holland, Spain and Italy during the last quarter of 2007. Seatwave has also taken investment from Holtzbrinck and a 3-year exclusive deal with StudiVZ, the “German Facebook”. According to PEHub, the European market hasn’t had a strong online reselling presence, particularly compared to the United States. Reselling tickets is not illegal in the UK and a recent Culture, Media and Sport Committee released a report actually saying the secondary ticketing industry had been ‘transformed’ by the Internet and provided convenience. However, the resale of football (soccer) tickets is illegal in the UK unless the resale is authorized by the organiser of the match, such as an under an agreement Seatwave competitor Viagogo has. The secondary ticketing market has been heating up with a spate of M&A activity which has seen Stubhub, TicketsNow and GetMeIn snapped up in the last 12 months by eBay and Ticketmaster. VC Fred Destin with Atlas Ventures , a Seatwave backers, says on his blog that heavily funded Viagogo has been focused on expensive marketing partnerships and low margin deals with sports clubs, while Seatwave has taken a grassroots approach, with fan-to-fan sales and viral marketing. He also levels some allegations towards Viagogo which I won’t repeat because I understand libel law in the UK. → Read More
European ticket resellers Seatwave have taken $25 million Series C in a round led by Fidelity Ventures that included Atlas Venture, Mangrove Capital Partners and Adinvest. Total funding for Seatwave to date is $36 million. London based Seatwave, like StubHub (acquired by eBay for $310 million) and TicketsNow (acquired by Ticketmaster for $265 million) resells tickets to major events. The company was founded in 2006 by Joe Cohen, formerly with Ticketmaster and Match.com. According to PEHub, the European market hasn’t had a strong online reselling presence, particularly compared to the United States. Scalping tickets (reselling tickets) is not the easiest market to be in, with the practice frowned upon by many, and often illegal as well. The resale of football (soccer) tickets is illegal in the United Kingdom unless the resale is authorized by the organizer of the match, such as an under an agreement Seatwave competitor Viagogo has. CrunchBase Information Seatwave Viagogo StubHub TicketsNow Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
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