iLike Negotiating A Reorganization; TicketMaster May Be Flushed Out
We've confirmed from multiple sources that San Francisco/Seattle based music service iLike, which has been profitable since 2008, is raising new capital in an unusual transaction designed to push out Ticketmaster, an investor since 2006.
Context & Ripple Effects
Ticketmaster has spent the last two years buying its way into the secondary market: the January 2008 acquisition of reseller TicketsNow, an NFL ticket-resale partnership announced in late 2007, and a running court battle over reselling practices — all attempts to catch eBay's StubHub. Its stake in iLike, held since 2006, was part of the same strategy of owning fan-facing touchpoints around live music.
Now TechCrunch confirms from multiple sources that iLike — profitable since 2008 — is raising new capital through an unusual transaction that sources say is designed to flush Ticketmaster out; the pushout itself remains unconfirmed, and no other outlet had picked up the story as of publication. The wrinkle: iLike is not distressed capital-raising, which makes an existing strategic investor's exit the point of the deal rather than a byproduct.
First-order effects
- If the reorganization closes, Ticketmaster's influence over iLike ends and new investors take control of a revenue-positive music service whose direction no longer serves Ticketmaster's ticketing agenda.
- iLike trades a strategic backer for capital unconstrained by a parent company's M&A roadmap — a cleaner cap table, at the cost of losing whatever distribution or industry access the 2006 investment carried.
Second-order effects
- For Ticketmaster, writing off a small media bet sharpens the question its 2007-2008 spending spree was supposed to answer — whether owning fan engagement feeds its resale business against StubHub — pushing it back toward exchange consolidation like TicketsNow.
- Other consumer-web startups holding strategic money from ticketing or media conglomerates now have a template for restructuring around investors whose incentives actually match theirs.
Third-order effects
- The episode fits a recurring structure in live entertainment: fan-data platforms and ticketing incumbents want the same audience relationship for different businesses, and when the strategies diverge, the minority strategic investor gets diluted out rather than the startup pivoting to fit the parent.
- If profitable consumer services can force strategic exits via creative financings, corporate venture stakes become less defensible as lock-ins — governance terms, not check size, decide who controls the company.
The trend: Strategic corporate investors in consumer web startups are increasingly vulnerable to being flushed out once the startup's path diverges from the parent's M&A agenda.