Home Team Marketing (HTM) has announced an investment of $5m (£3.8m/$4.2m) in its TicketRoar platform.
The cash injection, from an affiliate of New York City-based investment management firm Lyrical Partners, will be used to fund the expansion of HTM and TicketRoar, the proprietary, school-specific, ticketing service.
In addition to the new investment, Cleveland, Ohio-headquartered HTM also said it has extended its multi-year partnership with event technology platform Eventbrite.
HTM has generated more than $50m for US high schools since 2001, but is targeting a greater share of the more than 500 million tickets sold in the sector each year.
“This was a critically important transaction for the company; it provides us with the financial resources we need to make Home Team Marketing and TicketRoar a long-term success for all our clients, team members and investors,” said Steve O’Neill, executive chairman and chief executive of HTM.
“We are helping districts and schools across the country by providing best-in-class ticketing and event technology in a multi-billion-dollar market.”
Expand marketing efforts
The Lyrical capital is expected to be used to expand marketing efforts, increase sales, provide new event creation capabilities and onboard additional staff. It is hoped this will increase the reach of HTM and TicketRoar to hundreds of new schools by the end of 2017.
Lyrical’s founder and managing partner, Jeffrey Keswin, said: “TicketRoar, with its Eventbrite partnership, has again demonstrated innovative leadership.
“Lyrical is excited to fuel TicketRoar, and we expect the company’s high school leadership only to grow from here. TicketRoar and Eventbrite, together, facilitate a seamless, valuable high school event management experience.”
HTM said the extension with Eventbrite will help TicketRoar bring “sophisticated ticketing solutions” to more than 5,000 schools across North America and to the thousands of sporting events and extracurricular activities in the schools’ communities.
“TicketRoar and HTM have done an incredible job servicing the unique needs of high schools, nationwide,” said Matt Rosenberg, chief revenue officer at Eventbrite.
“Our continued partnership ensures that high school administrators can easily and efficiently list, ticket and sell out their events, while providing students and fans with access to a superior online ticketing experience.”
IMAGE: Eventbrite
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