SPH Media Fund invests in NY ticketing startup Peatix

By Digital News Asia March 17, 2015

US$5mil in Series B funding to fuel growth and innovation
Founded in 2011 by four former Amazon.com employees

SPH Media Fund invests in NY ticketing startup Peatix

NEW York-founded Peatix, a global online ticketing platform, has announced a US$5-million investment from strategic investor SPH Media Fund, lead investor DG Incubation, and Japanese public relations (PR) firm Sunny Side Up Inc.

Existing investors from the Series A round, Fidelity Growth Partners Japan and Draper Nexus, also participated in the round, Peatix said in a statement. They were amongst the investors, including 500 Startups, that pumped in US$3 million in May 2013.

SPH Media Fund is the corporate venture fund of Singapore Press Holdings Ltd.; while DG Incubation is the investment subsidiary of Digital Garage.

Peatix was founded in 2011 by four former colleagues at Amazon Japan. Its services are now available in 26 countries, with local teams in Singapore, New York City, Tokyo, and most recently, Kuala Lumpur.

SPH Media Fund invests in NY ticketing startup Peatix “We are very humbled by Peatix’s immense growth in the Asian market. With our new strategic partners SPH Media Fund and Sunny Side Up, we look forward to scaling the business even further and reaching new and untapped audiences,” said chief executive officer (CEO) Taku Harada (pic).

Claiming more than 1.2 million tickets sold from over 50,000 events, Peatix said it is reinventing event ticketing with patent-pending mobile technology and a business model that is not reliant on ticket buyer booking fees.

In 2014, it more than doubled its tickets sold from the previous year. This growth was fuelled by a strong emphasis on having a localised approach to community building, and in being a user-friendly and affordable ticketing technology for both larger companies and emerging, small-scale organisers, it declared.

“We identify with Peatix’s vision to build communities around events and believe in the ability of the founders and their team to scale this platform across various markets,” said SPH Media Fund CEO Chua Boon Ping.

“At the same time, SPH also has business units in events and there are direct synergies and possible opportunities for collaboration in the future.”

Peatix said the new funding will help it enhance its mobile and event discovery technology, and to improve the way sponsors reach out to event attendees.

It will also be used to expand and establish a local presence in new markets.

“We are an early investor in Peatix, and decided to take a step further by participating in this round,” said Digital Garage president and group CEO Kaoru Hayashi.

“Its service is not merely about making event management more efficient; it has many possibilities including targeted advertising with behavioural data. We look forward to supporting Peatix, and their aspirations to grow not only in Japan but around the globe.”