Ticketbis, a Spain-based online platform where users can easily and securely buy and sell tickets for every kind of event, such as concerts, festivals, theater plays, art performances or soccer games – earlier last month closed a round of funding worth US$6.6 million, making it a total of $12.7 million since its founding in 2009.
The latest funding round led by Active Venture Partners, a European venture capital company with a presence in Spain, Germany and Scandinavia, is expected to help the online ticket trading platform drive its international growth. “This investment will be dedicated to consolidate our leadership in the markets in which we are already present and accelerate growth in recently opened regions, such as Asia,” said Jon Uriarte, CEO & co-founder of Ticketbis.
Founded by Uriarte and fellow co-founder Ander Michelena in Bilbao, Spain, Ticketbis had quickly dominated the market in Spain. It then expanded to the rest of Europe, the United States as well as the Latin America and Asia markets. Today the company’s service is available in 31 countries and has 300 employees in 14 offices around the globe.
In Singapore, for example, where the market for individual to trade event tickets online is still relatively new, sees tickets for Jason Mraz’s upcoming concert on 17 and 18 November as well as a concert by Taiwanese singer Jay Chou on 27 December, being actively traded between users of the site. In 2015 the company expects revenues from new portals in Asia to be equal to that of Europe and Latin America by 2015.
Ticketbis closed the first half of 2014 with a turnover of €29 million, more than what was achieved in the whole of 2013. Just a few weeks after announcing its arrival in Asia earlier this year, Ticketbis revealed that 50% of the sales recorded in the first quarter of the year came from Europe while nearly 40% were from Latin America and 10% were from new markets.
“Ticketbis continues to generate impressive results that demonstrate the team’s great ability to execute its plans and achieve its goals,” said Blair MacLaren, a partner at Active Venture Partners.
