Eventful nabs Ticketmaster partnership, new funding

Online event-listing portals have been trying for a long time to get a cut of ticket sales. One of them, Eventful, seems to have finally gotten the Grail: a partnership with Ticketmaster, one of the world’s largest ticketing companies.

Under the deal, Eventful will be able to sell Ticketmaster stubs through its website. There’s no indication of what sort of cut Eventful will get, but the two companies are also agreeing to a co-advertising deal that should give them both access to a larger audience. Ticketmaster may also gain new business, through Eventful Demand, which allows users to ask for concerts from specific performers in their hometowns.

The company is also nearly doubling its existing funding, by taking a $10 million round led by Telefónica Capital, the venture arm of an international telecom company that also owns Terra Networks, a large Internet media company that famously bought the search engine Lycos for $12.5 billion in 2000.

Eventful has been looking for this funding for some time in order to expand its sales and marketing efforts. At this point, Eventful looks like it has graduated from the ranks of companies that matter only to Internet geeks to one that has mainstream appeal; the addition of more feet on the ground should help it reach an even larger market.

The investment may also indicate that Eventful is getting significant interest from overseas users. And like most startups, Eventful has also branched out into social networks and mobile offerings, most notably its iPhone app, which lets users track local events and buy tickets for them.

Along with Telefónica, several existing investors joined the round, including Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Bay Partners. Eventful is based in San Diego, Calif.