Ticketing and DYI-events management platform Ticketea has acquired Berlin-based TodayTickets, a company focused on offering consumers last minute deals for concerts and other types of live shows. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
This represents Ticketea’s third acquisition since early 2014, when the Madrid-based company acquired both Telemaco Sistemas and Telentrada.
TodayTickets was launched in early 2013 by various former employees of Rocket Internet, following in the footsteps of London’s YPlan. According to Gruenderszene the company had raised a seven-digit seed round from various local business angels, but it never found product/market fit and was recently unable to raise a new round of funding.
In a phone conversation, Ticketea’s CEO Javier Andrés says that the acquisition is a result of year-long conversations with TodayTickets. “As we were preparing to launch in Berlin and Germany we started talking to other startups and entrepreneurs in the ticketing sector, to get to know the market better and redefine our strategy there”, Javier says.
These conversations led to the acquisition of the startup’s main assets: its mobile technology (TodayTickets apps are no longer available on Android or iOS), its database, clients and know-how. TodayTickets’ employees won’t join Ticketea, but Javier claims that they will assist the company over the next few months as it continues expanding in the German market.
The Madrid-based startup posted a +100% increase in revenues in 2014 and is currently in the process of expanding internationally, with offices in Berlin and London.
The acquisition of TodayTickets is also interesting on a different level, since Javier Andrés has always felt that ticketing companies that solely rely on last minute deals will have a hard time finding product/market fit and scaling. “I don’t see last minute deals as a stand-alone business, but I do think it makes sense as a feature within an events company”, he says. “YPlan tried this but with their most recent round of funding they also kind of admitted that the market is not that big, as they also launched a mobile DYI platform for events”.
As for Ticketea, it’ll be interesting to see if last minute deals do end up becoming part of their offerings and if TodayTickets assets become important in the company’s German expansion. “Our main objective for 2015 is clear: grow outside of Spain”, Javier admits.
