SeatGeek raises $57 million, acquires Israeli ticketing software company TopTix for $56 million

SeatGeek has acquired Israeli ticketing software company TopTix in a $56 million deal.

The deal, representing only SeatGeek’s second acquisition after it bought rival FanSnap back in 2013, was funded by a fresh $57 million series D round led by Glynn Capital, with participation from Accel, Causeway Media Partners, Haystack Partners, Mousse Partners, and Technology Crossover Ventures. This takes SeatGeek’s total outside funding past the $150 million mark, and it also now has a surplus of $1 million to put towards growing its platform.

Founded out of New York in 2009, SeatGeek is perhaps better known as a secondary marketplace and aggregator for tickets sold elsewhere, but back in August it announced it was taking on the likes of Ticketmaster with a new primary ticketing platform that can be integrated into any app. So rather than selling tickets through its own silo, it wants to power ticket sales across the internet on websites and in apps.

Founded in 2000, TopTix supplies the software for ticketing, fundraising, and customer relationship management (CRM) services, with its flagship SRO platform processing 80 million tickets a year across museums, theaters, festivals, sports arenas, and more in 16 countries. As it happens, TopTix already served SeatGeek for its first foray into primary ticketing, which came into effect with Sporting Kansas City from U.S. Major League Soccer earlier this year. According to SeatGeek, the technology helped the soccer club grow its online sales by 61 percent compared to last season.

Now, SeatGeek is bringing TopTix in-house, where it will operate as a subsidiary and continue as it currently is, with its 500 or so clients now shifting over to becoming SeatGeek customers as a result of this acquisition.

“TopTix has by far the best backend primary ticketing technology in the world, and we believe that at SeatGeek we have created by far the best user experience,” explained SeatGeek cofounder Jack Groetzinger. “Combining these two platforms together positions SeatGeek as the best ticketing platform in the industry. We’re thrilled to be working with the team from TopTix to continue to build our open ecosystem that is transforming the way people access live events.”

The online ticketing space is really beginning to heat up. Last February, StubHub revealed it was taking on Ticketmaster with a new platform for both primary and secondary tickets; however, it is selling tickets directly through its own properties rather than powering third-party platforms. And the mighty Ticketmaster itself last year unveiled its own public APIs to enable sales through third-party services, although Ticketmaster isn’t opening this to just anyone that wants access, such as other ticketing outlets. SeatGeek’s API can be used by anyone.

As a result of this deal, SeatGeek now claims more than 250 employees spread across six countries.