Twickets eyes global launch after £1.2m funding

Face-value ticket exchange website Twickets has ended its crowdfunding campaign with £1.2m of investment – over 70% the original £700k it asked for – and founder Richard Davies is gearing up for international expansion.

The crowdfunding campaign launched in November last year with the aim of raising cash to help the business grow by bolstering its technology team and undertake its first marketing campaign. That campaign will focus on providing incentives for users of the service to help spread the word, with outbound marketing activity aimed at capturing new users coming next, Davies tells IQ. He’s currently looking for a head of marketing to oversee the project.

Twickets is available in the UK and thanks to a tie-up with Neo Sala’s Spanish promoter, Doctor Music, will launch in Spain before the end of March. Sala invested in the recent round alongside a number of promoters in Spain and Switzerland. Davies wants to roll out Twickets in other European territories as well as Australia, where they’ve already appointed someone to head up operations, and New York State in the second half of this year.

A total of 12% equity in Twickets has been given to those who participated in the funding drive, with the start-up now valued at over £11m.  T-shirts, waived booking fees and tickets to parties and events were offered to funders as incentives.

“As a community-led business we felt crowdfunding was the most relevant way for us to raise funds. We have industry investors as well, but we felt it was important to allow our users to invest.”

“As a community-led business we felt crowdfunding was the most relevant way for us to raise funds. We have industry investors as well but we felt it was important to allow our users to invest,” Davies explained. Since launching in 2011, Twickets has achieved over £2.7m in ticket sales and 240k app downloads. Including the £1.2m, its total investment has topped £2m to date.

A premium service is in the works that will offer sellers “promoted tickets” at the top of the Twickets stream and a “waiting list” service that’s currently in trial will allow buyers to register for a ticket for automatic allocation once available. Twickets has been appointed as the exclusive resale platform for partners including Adele, Mumford & Sons, One Direction, QPR, Crystal Palace football club and promoter Kilimanjaro Live and parent company Deutsche Entertainment AG (DEAG).

Recent investors include Marcus Russell and Alec McKinlay of Ignition Management (Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Catfish and the Bottlemen), Closer Artists (James Bay, George Ezra, James Morrison) and Twickets’ original founding board, which includes FanFair Alliance founders Ian McAndrew and Harry Magee, along with Richard Griffiths of Modest! Management (One Direction, Olly Murs), Chrysalis Records founder Chris Wright CBE, former EMI and BPI chairman Tony Wadsworth CBE and Crystal Palace FC’s owner and chairman, Steve Parish.
 

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