Lyte, the San Francisco-based ticket exchange service, has secured $33m in Series B funding, which it intends to use to continue its growth beyond its nearly 300 tours, festivals, and venues.
The latest round, with funding from investors including Chamath Palihapitiya’s Social Capital, music legend Quincy Jones and Rocketship VC, brings Lyte’s fundraising total to $48m.
Investors returning in this funding round include Ryan Moore’s Accomplice, Jackson Square Ventures, and Lyte’s original seed investors Joe Edelman and Adam Stone, as well as Philip Deutch, Zander Lurie, Matt Mickiewicz and digital media entrepreneur and Lyte Board Member, Rob Goldberg.
The ticketing technology platform offers customers who were unable to purchase primary market tickets the opportunity to buy tickets returned by original purchasers who ultimately can’t go. Customers seeking tickets may join an event’s official waitlist and customers whose plans have changed may securely return their purchased tickets.
Lyte’s ticketing partners then issue new valid tickets with new barcodes to the next customer on the official waitlist.
The four-year-old platform’s founder and chief executive, Ant Taylor, indicated that his company intends to deliver optimised ticket-purchase experiences “to millions of event-goers worldwide by the end of 2021.”
Taylor said: “We believe buying tickets should be no different from any other consumer purchase. Fans should be able to support their favourite artists, venues and events without the worry of what to do with their tickets if their life plans change, nor should they be driven to the unregulated secondary market and learn to become amateur ticket scalpers just because they need their money back.
“This approach allows us to build products that offer new ways for fans to safely and easily buy more tickets.
“Our rapid and continued growth – despite the hardships that have hit other parts of the live events sector in 2020 – serves as a testament to the ways our platform and philosophy are bringing better consumer experiences and business outcomes to all we deal with, and we anticipate bringing those benefits to millions of event goers worldwide by the end of 2021.”
Lawrence Peryer, Lyte’s chief revenue officer, added: “Lyte’s premise is that fans always want to attend the events they are passionate about, not just during the narrow purchase windows the industry typically offers.
“They will reserve tickets far in advance or before all details like venue or date are known, as long as those reservations can be cancelled and fulfilled tickets can be returned or exchanged for credit for other tickets or easily transferred to a friend.”
Image: OrnaW / Pixabay
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