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DiggConsolidation is likely to accelerate among companies that deal in the secondary market for tickets to concerts, games and other live events, predicts Avinoam Nomik Eden, founder of SeatQuest LLC, an online reseller of tickets launching Tuesday. Earlier this year, eBay Inc. bought StubHub for $310 million, and TicketsNow closed a $34 million first round of funding, led by Adams Street Partners and including DFJ Portage Venture Partners and New World Ventures.
With any luck, SeatQuest will be one of the future targets. Among the future acquirers may be online travel agents, comparison-shopping sites and music promoters as they seek new sources of revenue, says Eden, who reports interest from a wide variety of companies after hiring boutique investment banker Daniel Bryant, managing partner at Sheridan Road, to explore SeatQuest's options.
The focus of the Chicago startup is a visual search engine, which lets you see exactly where your seat would be in many venues. If you're hoping to watch, say, the New York Knicks when they take on the Seattle SuperSonics Wednesday night, SeatQuest will show you a chart of Madison Square Garden, with all the available seats highlighted. Move your mouse over a seat that interests you, and up pops the pricing and buying information. The tickets sold through SeatQuest come from several sources, including EventInventory.com and eBay.
Bootstrapped with $500,000 from Eden and his family, SeatQuest is seeking a similar level of investment from an angel investor in exchange for 10% of the company. That is, "unless we get an offer we cannot refuse," Eden tells Tech Confidential, saying his asking price is $15 million. - Mary Kathleen Flynn
For more on deal trends, see the March 6 story from TheDeal.com and the June 22 story from TheDeal.com
For more on SeatQuest, see the blogs lifehacker.com and geeksugar.com
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