MAKE It Social, the event ticketing start-up, has revealed plans to raise at least £400,000 from angel investors from home and abroad as it closes in on deals with major customers.
The company, whose software allows groups of friends to purchase tickets for events while paying individually, has been holding with investors from the US, Australia and the UK. Founder Eddie Robb is confident of completing deals by the end of the month.
The Edinburgh-based start-up, which was founded by Mr Robb four years ago, will use the funding to ramp up its headcount. Make It Social, which is run from the Codebase tech hub, plans to add to its 10-strong team by hiring four developers and a general manager.
The investment drive comes shortly after the firm landed a contract with Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) to sell tickets to the hit musical Wicked in London’s West End. Its link with ATG, which Mr Robb said has been a “huge advocate” of the business, put Make It Social in contact with investors in the US because of the theatre group’s association with Broadway. Contact has also been made with angels in Australia, which attracts touring Broadshow shows.
“We launched four months ago with the musical Wicked in London, and that’s led to a lot of West End shows,” Mr Robb said. “In the next six moths we should be live with the majority of shows in the West End.”
Make It Social had earlier secured deals with the Scottish Rugby Union, Harlequins Rugby Club, Surrey County Cricket Club, and Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club, recently promoted to the Premier League in England. It has a successful arrangement with Ticketmaster Sports, which led to its platform being used to sell tickets for the Kia Oval cricket ground.
And Mr Robb expects to conclude a number of other major deals soon, noting that its potential investors “come with clients” as well as expertise in areas such as technology and travel.
“We’re now hitting this phase where are signing some major international deals with big names in ticketing, which we can’t announce,” Mr Robb said. “We know the next six to nine months are going to be a step change.”
Mr Robb said clients using the Make It Social platform generate higher ticket sales and capture more data. While the average number of tickets sold in the industry is 2.3 per transaction, that rises to 8.2 on the platform.
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