Hot ticket Eventbrite raises $230m in IPO

21 Sep 2018

Eventbrite co-founder and CEO Julia Hartz on stage at the Female Founders Forum in Dublin, 2014. Image: Conor McCabe Photography

Eventbrite fares well on its first day of trading.

Ticketing start-up Eventbrite has raised $230m in its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company priced its shares at $23 initially, which soon shot up to $37, and achieved a valuation at nearly $3bn.

Eventbrite has processed more than $10bn worth of gross ticket sales and was founded in 2006 in San Francisco by Julia Hartz, Kevin Hartz and Renaud Visage.

In June, we reported how the company opened a new 11,500 sq ft office in a historical building at 97 South Mall in Cork. It also has offices in Dublin.

Ticket to grow

The company, which is hiring, currently employs 35 people in Cork and the new offices give it room to potentially accommodate between 80 and 100 workers.

Earlier this year, Eventbrite acquired Spain’s leading ticketing platform, Ticketea, for an undisclosed sum.

In 2014, Julia Hartz gave the keynote address at the Female Founders Forum, a Siliconrepublic.com event. At the time, Julia spoke of how the company succeeded in achieving gender parity among its workforce – a rare achievement in Silicon Valley.

Julia became CEO of Eventbrite in 2016 after her husband Kevin stepped aside from the role.

Eventbrite joins a growing number of tech companies that have gone public including Spotify, Dropbox, DocuSign, Zuara and Domo.

According to CNBC, Tiger Global owns 21pc of Eventbrite, Sequoia Capital owns 20pc of the shares and the Hartzs own a combined 17pc.

To hear more from Julia and co-founders Kevin Hartz and Renaud Visage, see our interviews below.

Eventbrite in conversation with Siliconrepublic.com

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com