TickPick has raised $40m (£33m/€36m) from PWP Growth Equity to help accelerate its marketing and business development initiatives and establish a data team.
The New York City-based secondary ticketing marketplace will use the funding to improve its customer service by using machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Chris O’Brien, TickPick co-founder and co-chief executive, said: “At TickPick our mission is to continually improve the customer experience through technological innovation and industry-leading service. The investment from PWP Growth Equity allows us to continue to separate TickPick as the industry leader in customer satisfaction.”
The company, which advertises itself as a ‘no-fee’ marketplace, has expanded since its launch in 2011 through acquisitions, such as its 2018 purchase of Razorgator, which doubled TickPick’s customer base.
In the same year, it also bought Rukkus, a live entertainment search engine with a high-definition 360-degree seat-view functionality of sporting venues.
TickPick has also partnered with Firefly Music Festival and Riot Fest, the Big South and Western Athletic Conferences, Florida International, Georgia State and Santa Clara Universities, wrestling icon Ric Flair, Sports Illustrated Saturday Night Lights, Shaq’s Fun House, and the Maxim Pregame Experience, among others.
It says it expects to surpass $200m of gross transaction value in 2019, achieving more than 60 per cent year-over-year growth.
Brett Goldberg, TickPick co-founder and co-chief executive, added: “PWP Growth Equity has an established track record of leveraging their experience in digital marketplace, e-commerce and consumer companies to spur growth at companies like TickPick. We expect to benefit tremendously from this experience. PWP Growth Equity is the ideal partner for TickPick as we continue to scale.”
US-based PWP Growth Equity is a middle market private equity group operated by Perella Weinberg Partners Capital Management.
John McKee, managing director of PWP Growth Equity, said: “We seek to partner with passionate and committed management teams with differentiated business models looking to further unlock their growth potential – and we found that in abundance in TickPick.
“Since its founding, TickPick has been disrupting the secondary event ticketing industry with its unique value proposition and established an incredibly loyal, passionate customer base. Our objective is to contribute to the further success of the TickPick brand and be an integral part of its increasing market share and national expansion.”
Image: Eva Rinaldi
Share this