TechCrunch
Spain's Ticketbis Raises Further $4.5M For Its After-Market Ticket Exchange
Ticketbis, the Spanish startup that operates an exchange for buying and selling after-market tickets to events in Europe and South America, has raised an additional $4.5 million in funding — capital it says will be used to expand into new markets.
The site, which competes with a number of other so-called “fan-to-fan” ticket exchanges such as Viagogo, Seatwave, Stubhub, and Getmein, currently operates in 15 countries worldwide, and claims to be the market leader in Southern Europe and Latin America.
The new capital comes from Ticketbis’ previous investors, along with several company employees and two unnamed Spanish Business Angels. It brings the total raised by the Spanish startup to $7.2 million via four funding rounds since it was founded in 2010.
It’s noteworthy that in a statement issued by the company, Ticketbis CEO and co-founder Jon Uriarte is talking up the decision to shun VC money in favour of other forms of private investment: “We have been approached by significant Venture Capital organisations, in both Europe and America, however, we preferred to preserve our independence and management agility and decided on private investor input only,” he says.
Of course, it’s worth adding that Spain is also known to have a dearth of VC money — the press release makes note of this fact, citing research published by the IE Business School in Madrid that says that only 2% of Spanish startups survive more than 5 years due to a lack of funding — so that could also explain the decision. On paper, however, the company does look like it has the kind of traction that is attractive to Venture Capital.
(Update: Two of Ticketbis’ backers are VC funds of sorts, albeit partly public/state funded: Seed Capital is a venture capital fund and EU project, dedicated to the promotion and development of ‘innovative’ start-ups, and Gestión de Capital Riesgo del País Vasco is a venture capital Management company founded in 1985 by the Basque Government through the Society for the Promotion of Industry.)
To that end, Ticketbis says that in the first 6 months of this year its booked $18 million in sales, which is already in excess of the $15 million invoiced in the whole of 2012. It makes money by charging a small commission to the buyer and seller on each ticket sold through its platform. Since being founded, the startup says it’s sold over 150,000 tickets worldwide, and claims 6 million users. Interestingly, it cites its “ambitious internationalisation plan” as key to that growth, and says that approximately half of its turnover comes from in Europe, with the remaining coming from Latin America.
Its three main ticket categories are Sports, Concerts and Theatre with the platform currently offering more than one million tickets to events around the world.
New Project Will Let You Scan 3D Objects Using Your Browser
As services go, 3D scanning is pretty hard. To get good models you need expensive lasers and data acquisition systems and even the Kinect-based scanners require expensive hardware… or do they?
Volumental, a Stockholm-based company, is created a browser-based scanner that connects to your depth camera and can grab 3D models of real objects in full color. While you’re not going to get amazing quality out of the rig, it is definitely a start.
Depth cameras are basically any camera with two lenses designed for Kinect-like interaction with your computer. This app will connect to the scanner and then take the measurements and make models in the cloud.
They are looking for $20,000 to help fund a team of programmers to complete the system and they’ve already hit $4,000. A $10 pledge gets you the opportunity to scan and download a model of your own head while $300 gets you a depth camera and 100 printable models to download. They will be selling downloads on the site and they will also open a public download market.
The idea – cloud-based 3D scanning – is pretty radical, especially considering that home computers could probably do the same thing fairly easily. However, the entire ecosystem – the market, the rendering, etc. – makes this far more interesting than any standalone system I’ve seen.
Burpple Serves Up A Fresh Version Of Its Social App For Foodies
Burpple, the memorably-named mobile app for food lovers that we profiled in December, has launched an updated version that makes it easier for gourmands to share pictures and recommendations.
The iOS and Android app’s brand new design has a revamped feed that allows users to see photos, restaurant names, comments, likes and other activity at a glance. Once you spot a tempting dish, Burpple’s Social Food Guide allows you to take a closer look at restaurants with interior photos, venue info and a “social menu” that ranks items by popularity. Want to find other lovers of Ethiopian cuisine or uni? The Community feature brings together users with similar interests in food.
Since its launch in December 2011, Burpple’s users have shared over 700,000 photos of food from over 100,000 merchants in 4,000 cities. The app’s team is based in Singapore and received seed funding from Neoteny Labs and QuestVC.
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