THE company behind the system that processed two million tickets for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year is targeting rapid growth after attracting venture capital funding.
Edinburgh-based Red61 has secured £572,000 in funding from Par Equity to fuel its efforts to win new live event ticketing clients in the UK and overseas.
Red61, boosted by the reputation it has earned as a result of its work with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, has already broken into overseas markets including Australia, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, and Canada.
In the near future, the company plans to open an office in Melbourne to serve Australia and New Zealand. It also aims to increase the amount of work gained through distributor partners in South Africa and Canada, and is developing similar relationships in the US, India, Belgium and France.
The company recently announced record annual revenues of more than £1 million.
Red61 was founded in 2002 to build the VIA ticketing system, the brainchild of chief executive Tony Davey and his business partner, software developer Peter McNaught. The pair were joined in the venture in 2006 by systems architect Will Tatam.
On the back of the fundraising, Red61 has moved into a new 4,000sq ft Edinburgh headquarters and increased its headcount from 15 to 25 on a full-time equivalent basis.
The company has secured contracts with The Garden of Unearthly Delights, the largest entertainment hub within the Adelaide Fringe, as well as the National Arts Festival of South Africa and the Abu Dhabi Science Festival.
It is also working with the Camden Fringe, Brighton Fringe, and Hullabaloo in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
Mr Davey said: “It’s been a remarkable journey so far, and the opportunity we now have through this investment makes it a key point and exciting time in the history of the business.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here