TickX to launch across Europe with new £3m investment

UK ticket search engine TickX has revealed plans to accelerate its push into the continent after raising £3m in a series-A funding round.

The Manchester-based company – which launched in Spain last September, joining existing operations in Britain and the Irish republic – says it will put the money towards international expansion, revealing plans to launch in “even more European countries” in the coming months, as well as investing in technology, adding cinema tickets to its platform and growing its team to 35 staff.

The funding round was led by BGF Ventures, the UK’s largest venture-capital firm, which is an also an investor in mobile ticketing platform Dice. Existing investors 24Haymarket and Ministry of Sound also increased their stake.

TickX, which aggregates tickets for more than 125,000 events from major ticket agencies, including Ticketmaster, Skiddle and US-based Headout, made headlines in 2016 after turning down £75,000 in funding from BBC’s Dragons’ Den. It has now raised 40x the amount offered by the ‘dragons’.

“The new funding will drive us towards becoming the go-to destination for experience-lovers across the world”

“Over a million event-goers last year discovered that TickX is the only place they need to go to discover experiences and buy the best tickets,” says CEO Steve Pearce. “Now, our focus is firmly on international expansion and leading innovation in the multibillion-pound global experience market. The new funding from BGF Ventures and our other fantastic investors will drive us towards becoming the go-to destination for experience-lovers across the world.”

George Mills from BGF Ventures adds: “We are both proud and excited to be backing Steve, Sam [Coley, CTO] and the whole of the TickX team.

“We’ve been seriously impressed by their ambition and pace in building the company, and we’re confident that TickX will continue to expand and reach their goal of becoming the global go-to platform for discovering experiences.”

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