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August 18, 2006
Index Ventures Backs StubHub Clone
Index Ventures has not confirmed it yet, but Red Herring says that it has invested in Viagogo, which is running an online platform for German and British consumers to buy and sell sports event, music, and concert tickets that they alread own.
Marketwatch calls it an online ticket scalping business and points out that StubHub in the US has been doing it in the US market for six years.
After reading the reports and taking a look at the site, we can say that the investors are following a tried and true formula of importing a US online business to Europe. But this time they got two of the US entrepreneurs responsible for StarHub, Eric Baker and Christopher Miller, to actually come here and try to re-do in Europe what they did in the US.
And the board that has been appointed should give Viagogo some credibility in the online world (and business press), such as famous founders Fabrice Grinda, who recently sold his mobile ringtone startup Zingy, and Brent Hoberman of Lastminute.com, as well as Yahoo's Dave Katz who heads up the online giant's sports and entertainment media group.
Red Herring describes the transaction-based business model here:
So how does Viagogo work? Suppose there’s a ticket on sale for $100. The buyer will pay $110 to purchase the ticket, factoring in a 10 percent commission to Viagogo. The seller receives $85, thanks to a 15 percent commission on the other end. But Viagogo doesn’t just sit back and collect its profit; the company actually takes care of the shipping labels itself, tracks the package, and holds the entirety of the payment until the deal goes through.
Read - Ticket Hub Launches in UK (Red Herring)
Read - Online ticket scalping comes to Europe (marketwatch)
Posted on August 18, 2006 07:00 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Online services | Permalink
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