Eventbrite has apparently joined Silicon Valley’s exclusive $1 billion “Unicorn Club.”
The online ticketing service has raised $60 million in new financing, Eventbrite told VentureBeat on Thursday. The funding round values the company at more than $1 billion, according to Fortune. The investors are Tiger Global Management and T. Rowe Price, which reportedly wanted a bigger ownership stake and offered Eventbrite terms it was unlikely to refuse.
The move is a bit surprising, as the late-stage ticketing company has been an IPO candidate for years. Then last April, it took $60 million in new funding, showing it was content to stay private a while longer. But it also hired former Shutterfly chief financial officer Mark Rubash that month, fueling rumors of a 2014 IPO.
This current round brings Eventbrite’s total financing to $200 million — and it makes a 2014 IPO very unlikely.
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Eventbrite’s gross ticket sales totaled more than $1 billion in the U.S. last year. International expansion is a major focus of the new round, alongside continued product development. The San Francisco-based ticketing company confirmed the new investment in an email exchange with VentureBeat.
“Eventbrite is a fast-growing company focused on building the largest marketplace for events in the world,” reads the company’s official statement on the matter. “We are fortunate to have such supportive and engaged investors, and after working together for nearly a year, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price proactively approached us about increasing their investment. As a responsible, global startup in hypergrowth, we recognize the importance of having an appropriate level of invested capital to execute our growth strategy and control our destiny. For these reasons, we chose to accept the funding.”
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story presented the funding as an unconfirmed $50 million round. The total is actually $60 million, Eventbrite told VentureBeat. We’ve updated the article accordingly.
