Hive has raised $27 million in Series B funding from Frontier Growth to expand internationally and develop its live event marketing platform.
The funding comes alongside technology investments at Ticketmaster and federal court action involving ticket resale practices.
Hive plans expansion and new tools
Hive combines ticket purchase data with email, SMS (short message service), advertising and CRM (customer relationship management) tools through more than 40 ticketing integrations.
Those integrations include Ticketmaster, AXS, Eventim, Etix, Tixr and DICE. Hive says its platform has helped generate more than $1 billion in ticket sales.
The investment will fund global expansion, further ticketing, data and advertising integrations, and new AI (artificial intelligence) assistants.
Ticketmaster acquires Ragie.ai and names executives
Ticketmaster acquired AI startup Ragie.ai for an undisclosed amount to strengthen its AI infrastructure and accelerate development. Ragie describes its technology as a context engine for agents, assistants and applications.
Ticketmaster also appointed three technology executives:
- Jim Freeman, chief technology officer: The former Amazon vice president helped launch Prime Video and later led engineering and product at Zalando. He will oversee global engineering, platform modernization, AI transformation and resilience.
- Rachel Smith, senior vice president of data science and machine learning: The former Block executive will establish Ticketmaster’s first dedicated organization in these fields, covering fraud detection, bot mitigation and fan experience improvements.
- Chuck Mortimore, senior vice president of product: The former Disney, Stripe, Visa and Salesforce executive will lead product strategy for identity, access and trust, including secure account and ticket management and protections against unauthorized access.
A new data breach has also been reported at Ticketmaster’s Brazilian subsidiary.
Federal agencies bring case against REPS & Co
A court filing by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleges that ticket reseller REPS & Co violated the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act.
The suit alleges that the company opened thousands of accounts on platforms including Ticketmaster and AXS to bypass purchase limits, generating more than $120 million in resale profit.
The National Independent Talent Organization (NITO) supported the action. Executive director Nathaniel Marro said:
“NITO applauds the FTC and DOJ their suit against REPS & Co and will support their continued efforts to enforce BOTS Act violators,”
Marro described resellers as financially backed enterprises deploying billions of dollars behind bots to obtain desirable seats, and called for resale caps.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster contest separate lawsuit
Live Nation and Ticketmaster filed a response this week to a separate lawsuit brought by the FTC and seven states.
The companies argue that regulators are misapplying the BOTS Act by seeking to penalize a ticketing platform they contend the law was intended to protect.
