Spanish ticketing startup Ticketea continues its mini shopping spree. The company, which claims to be the leading platform for event promotion and ticket selling in Spain, has acquired TodayTickets, the German last-minute ticket booking app, as a means to further expansion in Germany. The price of the acquisition remains undisclosed.
Noteworthy is that Ticketea describes the German market as a key strategic one and the purchase of TodayTickets builds on the Spanish startup’s Berlin office, which it opened in 2014, adding to existing offices in Madrid, Barcelona and London.
It’s also the continuation of a strategy to expand by means of acquisition, after the startup raised a $4 million Series B round of funding, led by newly-established Spanish VC Seaya Ventures.
This saw the purchase of software development company Telémaco Sistemas to help further develop Ticketea’s mobile-focused ticketing products, followed by the acquisition of legacy ticket sales service Telentrada from Spanish bank CatalunyaCaixa, somewhat of a coup for the then five year-old Ticketea. As I wrote at the time, out with the old — Telentrada has been operating since 1994 — and in with the new.
On the possibility of further acquisitions, co-founder and CEO Javier Andres said: “Yes, we are always looking for new opportunities, and if you find a great team and a great product, acquisitions are always a good option to seed up the process of entering a new market.”
Ticketea competes with market leader Ticketmaster for big events, or something like Eventbrite at the DIY ticketing Long Tail. Its platform solves the problem of both event discovery for consumers and a way to sell tickets for event organisers. “We try to simplify the way everybody can promote, manage and sell their tickets online,” Andres told TechCrunch back in 2013.
The startup’s revenue model is freemium: It’s free to publish and promote an event, and if tickets are free, using this part of the service is also free. For events that charge for tickets, Ticketea takes a commission of 10% for every ticket sold.