SeatGeek

SeatGeek is a mobile-focused ticket platform that enables users to buy and sell tickets for live sports, concerts and theater events. SeatGeek allows both mobile app and desktop users to browse events, view interactive color-coded seatmaps, complete purchases, and receive electronic or print tickets.

SeatGeek
Type of businessPrivate
Type of site
Live entertainment
Available inEnglish
FoundedNew York City, New York, United States
Headquarters
New York, New York
,
United States
Area servedWorldwide
OwnerClinton Smith
Created byRussell D'Souza
Jack Groetzinger
Eric Waller
Key peopleDanielle du Toit (President, SeatGeek Enterprise)
Brian Murphy (CTO)
Employees400+
URLseatgeek.com
LaunchedSeptember 14, 2009
Current statusActive

History

SeatGeek was founded by Russell D'Souza and Jack Groetzinger at DreamIT Ventures, an early stage startup accelerator program in Philadelphia and launched in September 2009 at TechCrunch50 where it was named by VentureBeat and CNET as one of the top 5 companies from the conference.[1] In May, the company had received $20k in seed funding from DreamIT Ventures.[2]

In January 2010, SeatGeek received between $500k and $1M in seed funding from Sunil Hirani, Mark Wachen, Arie Abecassis, Allen Levinson, Stage One Capital, Trisiras Group, and PKS Capital.[3] In July, SeatGeek received a further $1M in Series A funding from Founder Collective and NYC Seed.[4] Later, in October 2010 the Series A investors invested an additional $550k into the company.[5] In September, SeatGeek launched interactive seating charts for NFL stadiums.[6]

In February 2011 SeatGeek announced a strategic investment from Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary through their fund A-Grade Investments. The level of financing was not disclosed.[7] In August, SeatGeek announced that Yahoo! Sports had renewed its partnership with the company.[8]

In August 2012 the company received $1.7M in Venture funding from Entrée Capital, Mousse Partners, Founder Collective, Red Swan Ventures, and NYC Seed.[9]

In December 2013, SeatGeek announced the acquisition of FanSnap, a competing ticket search engine. SeatGeek discontinued the FanSnap search engine and rolled it into their existing ticket search platform.[10] Also, it received $2.2M in venture funding.[9]

In August 2014, it received a further $35M in Series B funding.[9] In November, SeatGeek and Telecharge announced that they had started a partnership.[11][12]

In March 2015, SeatGeek received $62M in Series C funding led by Technology Crossover Ventures.[13]

In July 2016, SeatGeek signed a deal with Major League Soccer to create an open ticketing network to let third-party websites sell tickets to MLS games.[14] As part of the deal, SeatGeek also became the official ticketing partner of MLS team Sporting Kansas City.[15] In September 2017, Seattle Sounders FC announced that SeatGeek would be their official ticketing partner starting in 2018.[16]

In 2017 SeatGeek acquired Toptix, a company from Israel founded by Eli Dagan and Yehuda Yuval.[17] It also became the official primary ticketing partner of the New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans.[18]

In 2018, SeatGeek hired James McClure as international general manager to expand the company's global reach.[19]

SeatGeek reached a deal with in-car vending company Cargo in 2019 to offer exclusive ticket deals to ride-share passengers.[20]

Dallas Cowboys partnership

On April 3, 2018, the Dallas Cowboys announced an agreement with SeatGeek to serve as the team's primary ticket office, replacing Ticketmaster. Darren Rovell reported that the Cowboys received a 15% stake in the company.[21]

Technology and functioning

The list of events on SeatGeek shows prices for ticket inventories aggregated from ticket exchanges such as TicketNetwork, TicketsNow, and Razorgator.

Tickets are sorted using the company's DealScore algorithm which finds the combination of best available price and seat location for a particular event. Historically, SeatGeek provided price forecast information in a similar manner to Farecast, an airline ticket aggregation and forecasting site purchased by Microsoft in 2008.[22] SeatGeek has seen success in the mobile space, adopting Apple Pay to provide seamless purchase and payment.[23][24]

In August 2018, SeatGeek partnered with Lyft on a feature that allows eventgoers to be dropped off closer to their actual seat.[25]

Awards and recognition
  • PC Magazine's "The Top 100 Web Sites of 2010".[26]
  • Founders Russell D'Souza and Jack Groetzinger were named in Bloomberg BusinessWeek's "America's Best Young Entrepreneurs 2010."
  • Founders Jack Groetzinger and Russ D'Souza named to Business Insider's "The Silicon Alley 100: New York's Coolest Tech People In 2010"[27]
  • In 2019, SeatGeek was honored in the Crain's New York Business Fast 50,[28] though it declined to disclose whether or not it was profitable.
  • SeatGeek Enterprise's Danielle Du Toit was named a 2020 GameChanger by Sports Business Journal in August 2020.[29]

References
  1. Ha, Anthony (September 15, 2009). "TC50: The five companies to watch". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  2. "Dreamit Ventures". Dreamit Ventures.
  3. "TC50 Finalist SeatGeek Raises Seed Funding, Revamps Website".
  4. Wauters, Robin (2010-07-21). "TC50 Finalist SeatGeek Closes $1 Million Series A Round, Partners With Nielsen". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  5. McDermid, Riley (2010-10-14). "SeatGeek gets $550K, Wall Street Journal deal to advance online ticket search". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  6. "We Built Interactive Seating Maps, Launched Today – Please Give Us Feedback". 2010-09-10. Retrieved 2018-09-06.
  7. Strauss, Karsten. "SeatGeek Snuffs Out Competition". Forbes.
  8. "Yahoo! Sports Selects SeatGeek As Ticketing Partner" (Press release). SeatGeek. 2011-08-22. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  9. "SeatGeek on Crunchbase".
  10. Kim, Ryan (22 February 2011). "SeatGeek Grabs New Ashton Kutcher Investment". gigaom.com.
  11. "SeatGeek and Telecharge Announce Ticketing Integration". November 11, 2014.
  12. "Broadway Bound: Telecharge and SeatGeek Ink A Deal". Forbes. November 11, 2014.
  13. Buhr, Sarah (2015-04-02). "SeatGeek Raises $62 Million In A Series C Led By Technology Crossover Ventures". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  14. Novy-Williams, Eben (July 27, 2016). "MLS Moves to Open Its Ticket Markets, Unlike the Rest of Sports". Bloomberg News. Retrieved August 7, 2016.
  15. Perez, A.J. (July 27, 2016). "SeatGeek enters into partnerships with MLS, Sporting Kansas City". USA Today. Retrieved August 7, 2016.
  16. "Sounders FC announces industry leader SeatGeek as club's new official ticketing partner". Seattle Sounders FC. 2017-09-20. Retrieved 2017-09-20.
  17. "SeatGeek raises $57M to acquire ticketing software company TopTix". TechCrunch. 18 April 2017.
  18. "New Orleans Saints, Pelicans making switch to SeatGeek as primary ticketing platform". The Advocate. 2017-11-17.
  19. "SeatGeek Expands Global Reach By Hiring International General Manager". Ticket News. 26 July 2018.
  20. "SeatGeek teams with Cargo on in-car ticket sales". Mobile Marketer. January 17, 2019.
  21. @darrenrovell (27 Feb 2018). "JUST IN: Jerry Jones & Cowboys have agreed to opt-out of NFL ticketing deal with Ticketmaster, agreed to terms with SeatGeek to be their box office partner, will take 15% of company" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  22. Wauters, Robin (2009-09-14). "TC50: SeatGeek Is The Farecast For Sports And Music Tickets". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  23. Solomon, Brian (January 21, 2015). "The Hottest Ticket In Mobile: SeatGeek Helps You Scalp The Scalpers". Forbes.com. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  24. Solomon, Brian (January 22, 2015). "Forget Stores: Apple Pay Is Already Taking Over Mobile Shopping". Forbes.com. Retrieved 2016-08-08.
  25. "SeatGeek, Lyft want to take the hassle out of going to concerts". CNET. August 22, 2018. Retrieved September 12, 2018.
  26. "The Top 100 Web Sites of 2010". PCMAG.
  27. "The Silicon Alley 100: New York's Coolest Tech People In 2010". Business Insider.
  28. "2019 FAST 50". Crain's New York Business. 2019-11-08.
  29. "Meet the 10th class of Game Changers". Sports Business Journal. 24 August 2020. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
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