Pandora has been making moves towards doing more around live music – for example, helping artists sell tickets to upcoming tours. Now it may be buying its own ticketing agency.
Tech site Recode reported yesterday that Pandora is “close to a deal to buy Ticketfly” for around $450m. Ticketfly has tended to focus on smaller venues, carving a niche for itself in the ticketing market with its emphasis on social networking features.
It may be smaller than giants like Ticketmaster, but as a startup it has been well-funded: investment rounds of $3m in 2010, $12m in 2011, $22m in 2012 and then $50m in July 2015 – $87m raised in total so far.
In March this year, the company said it had passed $1bn in tickets sold since its launch in June 2009, with half of that coming in 2014 alone.
Neither company is commenting on the reported acquisition, which would follow Pandora’s acquisition of analytics firm Next Big Sound earlier in the year.
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