Festicket Raises $680K For Festival Package Service

By: Talha Bhatti  |   March 11th, 2013   |   Business, News

The UK-based startup, Festicket, has recently received $680,000 in financing after its latest funding round. The website is working on making festival goers life easier by giving them the ability to book tickets and attend festivals by utilizing an online method of delivery. The investors include some local and international funds like France based Kima Ventures, Jacques-Antoine Granjon, UK based #1 Seed, Playfair Capital, and American firm Windcrest Partners. Festicket will use the recently acquired cash to make the further expand the platform and also work on new features and products. Some of the money will go towards increasing sales and improving marketing efforts. The startup will also be looking to gain key employees as it expands into Europe.

 
Festicket got started in 2012 by the current CEO, Zacharie Sabban, and CTO, Jonathan Younes. The idea behind the website is to make the experience buying a festival experience similar to booking a holiday package online. The idea is to save consumers time and headache by giving them all they need to attend a festival in one location and in the form of a package. A users hops into the site and selects the festival they want to attend. With one click they can get the tickets, transport and accommodation in one package. By making the process simpler and easier the company is helping give the festival culture a chance to attract more people.

 
For now Festicket has 40 festival in its directory of events that take place all over Europe. The business model used by the website requires a 20 percent cut of all services sold. That means the company gets a take of all parts of the package its sells like tickets, residence, transport and any other extras. The startup has stated that on average its basket prices are approximately €290. They startup currently has 27,000 active members with users from Britain, France and Germany making up 73% of the user-base.

 

Festicket has its consumer side running smoothly and has also dove into a business to business service in the background. The website has create a deeper relationship with festivals by giving them a white-label option of selling packages directly on their own websites. The b2b service is already available on the official website for the United Kingdom’s Camden Crawl festival, Denmark’s open air Roskilde festival, Spain’s Monegros Desert Festival, Morocco’s Gnaoua and Poland’s OFF Festival.

 
Festicket had been running on funding from family and friends who had put together £70,000 for the startup before the latest funds were raised. The British startup has to date $785,000 in total funding and will have #1 Seed’s Raj Ramanandi as a new board member.

Source: TechCrunch