Ticketea secures new funding to expand its social event management service

[Spain] Ticketea, a Spanish startup centered on event promotion and management, has secured a further round of funding after raising $280,000 last summer. In line with most early-stage funding in Spain, it’s on the small side: €100,000 from an undisclosed business angel and €100,000 from public credit fund ENISA.

Ticketea operates in particularly crowded sector. Locally, there’s the traditional but perhaps stale player, Entradas, and the early-stage StageHQ. Internationally, competitors include Eventbrite, Amiando (both of which have traction in Spain) and TicketLeap, among others.

Ticketea recently reached agreements to partner with EMI Entertainment, as well as a number of independent record labels, such as Arctica Pro.

Javier Andres, Ticketea’s CEO, insists that they’re not to be confused with a mere ticketing company, however, but are working to provide a more robust event management system. The new funds will be used to develop and reinforce event distribution through a number of social media features.

Tickets are, after all, “social tokens”. Therefore Ticketea is focusing on providing social distribution channels for event organizers who can use the service to set up an event on a domain or subdomain of their choice, and include their own branding or look and feel. They can then integrate their in-house email database, sell merchandise along with tickets, and take advantage of a number of promotional badges, widgets and integration with blogs, Facebook and Myspace. Pricing is set at 8%, with a €0.80 minimum commission.

To enter other markets, mainly LATAM, Ticketea offers an API for event portals who can integrate the technology as a whitelabel. What’s still not clear, however, is whether Ticketea plans to directly enter additional, more complex markets.

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