SeatGeek Raises $62 Million In A Series C Led By Technology Crossover Ventures

Shyp Is Raising $50 Million At A $250 Million ValuationOnline ticket sales startup SeatGeek has raised $62 million in Series C funding. Co-founder Jack Groetzinger confirmed to TechSupport that the round was led by Technology Crossover Ventures, with participation from previous investor Mousse Partners as well as Accel Partners and Causeway Media.
This brings the funding total up to $103 million now. According to one source that puts the valuation at about $200 million.
The new funding will help the ticketing company take on competitor StubHub, particularly in the mobile space. SeatGeek launched in 2009 as a mobile-first ticket sales operation. It’s mobile applications have been downloaded over 3 million times, and over 60% of SeatGeek users now access the service via a mobile device, according to the company.
Both SeatGeek and StubHub see the majority of their ticket sales split between sports and music events. StubHub separates mobile ticket sales between StubHub Sports and StubHub Music. SeatGeek has, thus far, chosen to keep all ticket sales in a single app.
Both SeatGeek and StubHub have made some strategic partnerships in the mobile music space lately. StubHub Music partnered with Spotify earlier this year and has been focusing on an end-to-end experience for users involving music discovery and local event recommendations. SeatGeek made similar partnerships with Spotify, Rdio and Last.fm. Groetzinger affirmed the company would be focusing on relevant recommendations such as tickets that are available rather than localized recommendations for shows that may have already sold out.
A big priority for the startup will be to now focus on marketing and hiring more engineers to work on the mobile experience. SeatGeek has doubled the overall team in the last year, growing to 64 employees now. A majority of the money will be used for marketing purposes and to increase the team to 110 employees by the end of 2015.

By: Unknown On 22:24

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How Technology Is Tricking You Into Tipping More

Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and blogs about the psychology of products at NirAndFar.com. Join Nir at this year’s Habit Summit at Stanford on March 24th, 2015.
My taxi pulled up to the hotel. I got out my credit card and prepared to pay for the ride. The journey was pleasant enough but little did I know I was about to encounter a bit of psychological trickery designed to get me to pay more for the lift. Chances are you’re paying more, too.
Digital payment systems use subtle tactics to increase tips, and while it’s certainly good for hard-working service workers, it may not be so good for your wallet.
A new report by the tech research firm Software Advice discovered that digital point-of-sale terminals, like the one in my cab, increase the frequency and amount of tips left by customers. What’s the secret behind how these manipulative machines get us to pony up?
The Power of Defaults
A recent Iowa State study cites a mobile payment company that effectively

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Viv, Built By Siri’s Creators, Scores $12.5 Million For An AI Technology That Can Teach Itself

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On The Way To An IPO, Education Technology Startup Instructure Is Close To Raising A Big New Round

Education technology company Instructure has raised a big new round on its way to an initial public offering later this year, according to several sources familiar with the company’s plans.

We’ve heard rumors from multiple sources that the cloud-based K-12 and higher education platform is raising between $50 to $70 million in Series E funding, while one source put the low end of the range at over $40 million.

The maker of the Canvas learning management system and the Canvas network MOOC platform has taken on the online education tech giant Blackboard since its launch in 2011. Both Blackboard and Canvas offer online educational platforms for the scholastic set.

Blackboard, which launched in 1997, still claims to have the corner on the virtual learning market serving just over half

By: Unknown On 03:10

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Technology Predictions For The Second Half Of The Decade

Posted 9 hours ago by Lance Smith0
SHARESNext StoryOn The Way To An IPO, Education Technology Startup Instructure Is Close To Raising A Big New Round

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The Impending Opportunity In Real Estate Technology

Editor’s note: Josh Guttman is a Partner at SoftBank Capital based in New York City. He blogs at joshguttman.com.
Things are starting to simmer in real estate technology. The first phase of technology development in the category, which was primarily focused around listing services for the residential side of the market, has paved the way for industry leaders to broadly reconsider how technology can make their lives better.
For those of us in the technology world with some background in real estate, the opportunity may seem obvious. But real estate is a sector of the economy that’s created immense wealth without changing their workflows or processes for many decades, so there’s a predisposed lack of urgency to upgrade the ol’ tool belt.
Market Primer
The word

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