UK-based Festicket has raised €9.3 million in Series D round to further fuel its explosive growth

Festicket, the world’s largest portal for music festival experiences, is announcing $10.5 million in Series D funding. The round is led by transatlantic venture capital firm Beringea and joined by Jaguar Land Rover’s venture capital fund InMotion Ventures, Channel 4’s Commercial Growth Fund, Lepe Partners, U-Start and ex Spinnin’ Records CEO Eelko Van Kooten.

Eyal Malinger, Investment Director at Beringea, will join the Festicket board, along with Treatwell’s Chief Operating Officer, Ben Leaver. The company will be appointing an independent non-executive chairman in the near future.

Festicket empowers music fans with a seamless service to discover and book tickets and travel packages for over 1200 music festivals worldwide. The two-sided marketplace uses a network of over 4000 accommodation and travel suppliers to create end-to-end experiences. To date, the company has served 2m+ travellers from 120+ countries and has a community of over 2.5m registered, highly-engaged, global travellers, adventurers and live music lovers.

Festicket is seeking to become the no.1 global live events experiences platform by focusing on expansion into North American and Asian markets and expanding its supply base by offering a broader range of events. The company will also continue to build its discovery and community network through new marketing channels, including a content and media partnership with Channel 4 and continued investment in improving the customer experience through product and R&D innovation. The firm has offices in London (HQ), Amsterdam, Berlin, Porto and San Francisco.

The festival tourism industry is continuing its steep upward curve driven by increasing levels of consumer spend in the experiences economy. In the UK alone, the music tourism industry has grown from £2.2b in 2012 to >£4b in 2017 according to UK Music’s Tourism report. Alongside its one-shop-stop booking solution, Festicket has become the authority for music festival discovery. Its Festicket Guide and Festicket Magazine services form the largest online festival publication in the world and its Festival Finder, an integration with Spotify that helps find festivals through listening habits, was launched in July 2018.

Prior to this round, Festicket had raised $13.7m from investors including Lepe Partners, PROfounders, U-start, Playfair, Wellington and Windcrest. Festicket also has ex-Booking.com CMO/co-founder Arthur Kosten as an investor and advisor and Jean-Charles Carré, manager of world-famous DJ David Guetta as an investor.

Zack Sabban, CEO and co-founder at Festicket commented: “With this new investment we will be able to accelerate the expansion of our unique business model internationally and to more verticals. Our success so far has been driven by our focus on content, community and commerce, so we will use the same ingredients to become the go-to global brand for live event experiences.”

Jonathan Younes, CPO and co-founder at Festicket added: “Our product will continue to develop and innovate alongside the business. We’ll be launching exciting new features for our community that make discovering and booking live events easier and more intuitive than ever before.”

“Beringea’s investment in Festicket is underpinned by a fundamental shift in global consumer habits,” commented Eyal Malinger, Investment Director at Beringea. “Unprecedented demand – particularly among millennial consumers – for experiences over material possessions has fuelled the meteoric rise of ‘festival tourism’. Festicket sits at the epicentre of this trend and, as Europe’s largest vendor of festival travel and tickets, it has enabled millions of people to uncover new music, culture, and experiences.

“With millions of monthly visitors to its website, we felt that Festicket is uniquely positioned to help festivals around the world grow and attract new customers. Prior to Festicket, discovering and purchasing festival tickets, travel, accommodation and experiences was fragmented, time-consuming, and often restricted only to experienced festival-goers. Its platform – built by one of the most exceptional collection of founders and management we have encountered – has transformed this dynamic, opening up the market to first-time consumers and dramatically reducing the time and effort required to enjoy the festival experience.”

Alex Mahon, CEO at Channel 4 said: “Channel 4 has innovation, music, and young audiences in our DNA so we are delighted to become part of Festicket’s journey. Festicket is already a very high growth company and has very attractive further growth potential with the benefit of Channel 4’s comprehensive national reach.”

Sebastian Peck, Managing Director, InMotion Ventures, said: “Our investment in Festicket reflects our belief that premium mobility is about adventures and experiences that people love for life. The festival industry is a tangible manifestation of this desire, and we want to help make it easier for every future festival goer to create everlasting memories.”