Online ticketing company Eventbrite raises $60m, puts off its IPO until further notice
Online ticketing company Eventbrite has secured $60 million in growth funding from T. Rowe Price and Tiger Global Management, the Wall Street Journal reports, in a move that will surprise some as the firm …
Context & Ripple Effects
Eventbrite entered 2013 after doubling the number of events on its platform in 2011, targeting $1 billion in gross ticket sales and adding an iPad card reader for at-the-door payments. The company had been expanding both its event inventory and its ability to capture transactions at the point of sale.
First-order effects
- Eventbrite gains $60 million from T. Rowe Price and Tiger Global Management to fund growth while postponing an IPO, keeping its financing and disclosure decisions in private hands.
- T. Rowe Price and Tiger Global Management become financial backers of a ticketing platform whose growth case rests on increasing event volume and payment capture.
Second-order effects
- A private growth round reduces the immediate need for Eventbrite to test public-market demand, shifting the near-term benchmark from IPO readiness to execution against its ticket-sales and organizer-adoption goals.
Third-order effects
- The move illustrates how growth-stage internet companies can use late private capital to extend the period between operational scale-up and a public listing, concentrating influence among large institutional backers.
The trend: Growth-stage platforms are increasingly using institutional private funding to finance expansion without committing to an immediate IPO.