Need tickets? Getting good seats should not be a problem for Square that has just made a strategic investment in Eventbrite and its events technology platform. As the following article reports, Square also becomes Eventbrite’s payments processor.
Square Inc. struck an agreement to process payments for ticketing service Eventbrite and made a strategic investment in the startup, part of the digital-payments company’s push into online commerce, an area dominated by larger players like PayPal Holdings Inc.
San Francisco-based Square invested $25 million in Eventbrite, which lets event organizers sell tickets and promote and manage events. Eventbrite, whose customers include the Tribeca Film Festival and Maker Faire, said it processes 2 million to 3 million tickets each week and expects to facilitate more than $4 billion in gross ticket sales this year. Square will handle Eventbrite’s online, mobile and in-person payments for countries where Square does business.
Square’s stock has more than doubled in the past year as investors gain confidence in its long-term growth path. The shares were up less than 1 percent to $28.21 at 11:56 a.m. in New York Thursday. When the company was co-founded by Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, who also runs Twitter Inc., it focused on selling smartphone plug-ins that helped individuals, food trucks and farm-stand vendors accept credit cards.
Since then, the company has gained ground with bigger merchants with its all-in-one offering, freeing them from having to stitch together services from different vendors. With Square, Eventbrite’s users can analyze sales data from a single platform, whether they’re selling tickets online or merchandise at an event. Currently, event planners mostly process payments through Eventbrite’s own system.
Square continues to expand beyond its mobile POS roots, and this time wades into e-commerce via an investment in Eventbrite. Square also lands Eventbrite’s payments processing business, which should prove of value due to the transaction-intensive world of event ticketing. A bonus for Square—they will at least have access to the best seats in the house regardless of what happens to their investment capital.
Overview by Raymond Pucci, Associate Director, Research Services at Mercator Advisory Group
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