TiqIQ, the Times Square-based aggregator for live event ticketing, just announced a funding raise today: $1.7 million led by Contour Venture Partners, with Inovia Capital participating. The site, which has six employees in New York and another nine in Tel Aviv, was started in 2009. Until now, it’s been chugging along on angel investment and the revenue it’s now generating from partnerships with 1,000 publishers including SBNation, the Washington Post and New York Post, which CEO Jesse Lawrence says comes out to between $2 and $5 million.
“We’re the no. 1 aggregator in terms of reach and usage,” Mr. Lawrence said, citing TicketNews.com, a trade site for news about the ticketing industry.
But TiqIQ is primarily a behind-the-scenes sort of startup, which is why it’s less visible than sites like SeatGeek, which recently launched an events recommendation feature in addition to its slick ticket search engine. “We haven’t focused on a destination site,” Mr. Lawrence, an IAC vet, told Betabeat. “We’ve been more focused on our publishing platform.”
But you may be hearing more about TiqIQ as the company spends its fresh $1.7 million on product development and bolsters its offerings for music events (sports is dominant right now).
The company’s tech team is based in Tel Aviv, Mr. Lawrence said, because it’s less expensive to pay developers there. But the salary gap is shrinking, he said, “but talent pool remains exceptional,” citing the tech training Israelis get in the army. “It’s gotten a little less meaningful but there’s still a good cost advantage to tech development in Israel.”
TiqIQ’s platform generated almost five million visits in November, the company said in a press release.
