With an aim to expand its European presence, See Tickets, a ticketing services company owned by Vivendi, an integrated content, media, and communications group recently acquired a Dutch ticket sales, and access management company Paylogic.
Reportedly, the terms of the deal have not been disclosed as See Tickets and LiveStyle (the parent company of PayLogic) are not commenting on whether the sale was in cash or shares.
Paylogic acquisition – All you need to know
Paylogic is associated with live industry brands like Tomorrowland, ID&T, ADE, and Awakenings. The online platform sells tickets for music, sports, and cultural events across 10 countries in EU region. With the acquisition of Paylogic’s — See Tickets will get access to an established client-base and a reach that runs in millions of engaged users across EU.
Further, the acquisition includes a deal that makes ‘See Tickets’ the exclusive ticket provider for all brands of LiveStyle which includes Disco Donnie Presents, React Presents, Life in Color, Made Events, as well as, All My Friends.
Paylogic: The Dutch company’s origins
Paylogic’s core technology has made it an attractive target of acquisitions since the company was founded in 2005. It was spun out by ICT company Accepté which developed an e-Commerce solution for tickets sellers. Their platform was used to sell more than 5 million tickets, primarily in the European countries. Thus, it came to be seen as a ‘payment solution’ for event managers.
“We are delighted to acquire Paylogic. It is a clear statement of our intention to grow our activities in Europe and the U.S. We warmly welcome the Paylogic team to the wider Vivendi family and look forward to sharing an agenda of growth, service quality and technological progression,” said Rob Wilmshurst, CEO of See Tickets.
Currently, Paylogic is led by CEO Jan Willem van der Meer who progressed in the company starting as a chief commercial officer in 2008 to finally become the CEO in 2015. And, for now, See Tickets does not want to disturb the Dutch company’s business model.
“It’s very much business as usual for the company. We bought the business because we like it, not because we want to re-engineer it today,” said See Tickets CEO Rob Wilmshurst told Pollstar, a trade publication covering the worldwide concert industry.
Online ticketing: A competitive niche
Meanwhile, the deal shows that ‘online ticketing’ is competitive and consolidation in the form of mergers and acquisitions is here to stay. Other notable deals that show this trend include:
- Eventbrite’s purchase of Ticket Fly
- Ticketmaster’s purchase of Frontgate
In another high profile acquisition in the Benelux, Irish parking app Parkpnp acquired Belgian online parking startup Sharemypark for an undisclosed sum last month. And, another Dutch startup called Quicargo raised €900k seed funding to expand its operations across Belgium and Germany.
To stay updated with what’s the latest happening in the tech startup scene in the Netherlands, stay tuned to Silicon Canals.
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