N.Y.-based ticket search engine SeatGeek has closed on a $35M Series B round of venture capital financing, the latest inflection point of its accelerating growth. The round was led by noted Bay Area venture outfit Accel Partners, but also includes a large group of luminaries from the sports industry. Also participating in the round were Causeway Media Partners, an investment fund led by Celtics CEO Wyc Grousbeck; NFL QBs Peyton and Eli Manning; Melo7Tech, the venture capital outfit formed by Knicks F Carmelo Anthony; former Duke teammates Shane Battier and Mike Dunleavy Jr.; Stanford Univ. athletics; and Real Networks Founder & Chair and Mariners partner Rob Glaser. Existing investors such as Mousse Partners also participated in the round. U2 manager Guy Oseary is also an investor in the company. SeatGeek co-Founder Jack Groetzinger said the collection of bold-name investors is not a vanity play but rather a strategic plan. “We believe they all add real value,” Groetzinger said. “And this is the result of significant interest in the company.” The money will be used primarily to fund SeatGeek’s ongoing development in the mobile space, which now accounts for the majority of its traffic and nearly half of its ticket sales. “For the longest time, mobile in the ticketing world was simply lead (generation) for the desktop, but no longer,” Groetzinger said. SeatGeek expects to drive more than $160M in ticket sales for calendar year ’14.
