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StreetTeam is now Verve, raises $18.5 million in new finance

By | Published on Thursday 12 October 2017

Verve

Peer-to-peer ticket selling platform StreetTeam is now called Verve, so you all need to update your list of ‘interesting ticketing things’ on your white board of interesting things. Though if it turns out you wrote ‘StreetTeam’ in permanent marker, meaning you now need a new white board, don’t worry, the team at Verve can probably get you one. Because they announced this week that they’ve just closed an $18.5 million funding round. Good times.

StreetTeam was created by the merger last year of two similar start-ups – The Physical Network and We Represent – and encourages music fans to sell tickets to shows and festivals to their friends via their various social networks, getting themselves some lovely goodies and kickbacks for their trouble.

Now with its new name, Verve says that it “has achieved significant success within the live entertainment industry selling more than 500,000 tickets globally and securing major partnerships with some of the best ticketing companies around the world”. The new financing will be partly used to further the firm’s global expansion in live entertainment, but also to extend the peer-to-peer selling concept into other sectors too.

The new funding round has been led by Draper Esprit, and also includes some former investors like Kindred, Frontline Ventures and Backed. Name-checking Verve co-founders Callum and Liam Negus-Fancey, Draper Esprit CEO Simon Cook said of the company he’s just invested in: “Callum and Liam have built a world-class team who we back with full confidence and we very much believe in where Verve is heading”.

He added: “Today’s audience is becoming immune to traditional advertising and increasingly prefer to discover through friends and people they trust. Verve has already proven word-of-mouth is a scalable and powerful tool for live entertainment, and we will support them in taking this channel to other markets and sectors”.

By the way, if you did accidentally write ‘StreetTeam’ in permanent marker on your white board, just write over those words with a proper whiteboard marker, then wipe that off, and it should take the permanent marker ink away with it. It’s simple. Stop trying to grab Verve’s new found cash to get yourself a new whiteboard. You don’t need a new whiteboard. Leave Verve alone.



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