SeatGeek is a website that provides search and price forecasting for consumers purchasing sports, concert, and theater tickets on the secondary ticket market. SeatGeek mines millions of ticket transactions from major secondary ticket markets like Stubhub

Stubhub

StubHub is an online marketplace owned by eBay, which provides services for buyers and sellers of tickets for sports, concerts, theater and other live entertainment events....

, Ticketnetwork, TicketsNow

TicketsNow

TicketsNow, established in 1999 and based in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, is a marketplace for event tickets.TicketsNow was named in 2004 and 2006 to the Inc. 500 Index of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S...

, Razorgator and more, and uses this data to forecast whether ticket prices will rise or fall over time.

Overview

SeatGeek is a powerful ticket search engine that aggregates ticket listings from secondary ticket markets, enabling users to find the best deal for a particular sports game, concert, and many other events. Tickets are displayed on interactive seating maps and are color coded, using the company's DealScore algorithm to show consumers where to find the best seats at the best price.

Dubbed by the press as the "Farecast of sports and concert tickets," SeatGeek's service has parallels to Farecast, an airline ticket aggregation and forecasting site purchased by Microsoft for $115 MM in 2008.

SeatGeek was founded by Russell D'Souza and Jack Groetzinger out of DreamIT Ventures, an early stage startup accelerator program in Philadelphia and launched in September 2009 at TechCrunch50

TechCrunch50

TechCrunch50 was a conference held at the Design Center Concourse in San Francisco, California on September 14-15, 2009, hosted by TechCrunch and Jason Calacanis. Its aim was to find the best Web 2.0 start-ups and launch them in front of the industry's most influential venture capitalists,...

 where is was named by VentureBeat

VentureBeat

VentureBeat is a technology blog that focuses on innovative companies and the forward-thinking executives behind them.-History:The company was founded in 2006 by Matt Marshall. In 2008, the New York Times called VentureBeat one of the "top blogs"...

 and CNET

CNET

CNET is a tech media website that publishes news articles, blogs, and podcasts on technology and consumer electronics. Originally founded in 1994 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie, it was the flagship brand of CNET Networks and became a brand of CBS Interactive through CNET Networks' acquisition...

 as one of the top 5 companies from the conference.

Funding

May, 2009: SeatGeek received $20k in seed funding from DreamIT Ventures.

January, 2010: SeatGeek received between $500k and $1M in seed funding from Sunil Hirani, Mark Wachen, Arie Abecassis, Allen Levinson, Stage One Capital, Trisiras Group, PKS Capital.

July 2010: SeatGeek received $1M in Series A funding from Founder Collective and NYC Seed. Later, in October 2010 the Series A investors invested an additional $550k into the company.

February 2011: SeatGeek announced a strategic investment from Ashton Kutcher

Ashton Kutcher

Christopher Ashton Kutcher , best known as Ashton Kutcher, is an American actor, producer, former fashion model and comedian, best known for his portrayal of Michael Kelso in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show...

 and Guy Oseary

Guy Oseary

Guy Oseary is an Israeli-American expert businessman who began his career in entertainment at 17 at what was to become Maverick Records. He is Madonna's manager.-Maverick:...

 through their fund A-Grade investments. The amount of the financing was not disclosed.

Awards

February 2010: SeatGeek was named a "Technical Achievement" finalist in the South by Southwest's (SXSW) 2010 Web Awards.

August 2010: SeatGeek was named in PC Magazine's

PC Magazine

PC Magazine is a computer magazine published by Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009...

 "The Top 100 Web Sites of 2010".

September 2010: SeatGeek founders Russell D'Souza and Jack Groetzinger were named in Bloomberg Businessweek's "America's Best Young Entrepreneurs 2010."

October 2010: SeatGeek was named in Business Insider's

Business Insider

Business Insider is a U.S. business/entertainment news website launched in February 2009. Founded by DoubleClick Founder and former C.E.O. Kevin P. Ryan it is the overarching brand beneath which fall the Silicon Alley Insider and Clusterstock verticals...

"The Silicon Alley 100: New York's Coolest Tech People In 2010"