Social group ticketing startup Fanimal raises $4m to accelerate product development
Los Angeles-based social group ticketing startup Fanimal, announced an acquisition of $4 million in its latest round of funding to accelerate product development. Led by Bullpen Capital with early investments from Burst Capital and Pear VC, Fanimal launched in 2019 to make ticket buying a more social and risk-averse experience.
Jonny Halprin, CEO and Co-founder, Fanimal: "Nobody goes to live events alone, but the only way to buy tickets is alone. We've changed that. Our group purchase technology has made buying tickets part of the social experience, less about the transaction and more about who you're going with. This new capital injection will allow us to accelerate our product development. Before long, the group buying experience will be much more powerful because it will be taking place in a mobile app."
On the Fanimal platform, there is no longer the need for one person to bear the financial burden of buying a bunch of tickets up front. Fanimal uses a patented group purchase ticketing technology, allowing fans to create a group with a specified minimum size for a concert, with each individual member of the group paying for their ticket once that minimum is met (additional members can be added thereafter).
Ann Lai, General Partner, Bullpen Capital: "Fanimal approaches event ticket purchasing from a fundamentally differentiated framework. These days, we go to events craving in-person social experiences. Fanimal has proven that people do not want to buy alone, and these purchasing groups naturally evolve into the foundations for ephemeral, event-based social interactions, from chatting about the event, to organizing logistics, exchanging playlists, sharing photos, etc."
Fanimal further enriches the user experience for fans with a number of features that go beyond the transactional aspect of buying a ticket – most notably, a messaging product that allows group members to not only coordinate logistics surrounding the event itself, but also send each other GIFs and discuss all the other details of their unforgettable experience.
Fanimal's price transparency and unique group purchase model has fueled explosive growth of adoption among fans, as the platform's user base grew by an order of magnitude in 2021. The company launched in January of 2020, endured the industry-cancelling pandemic, and since inception, has raised a total of $6M in venture capital funding.
Fanimal is also expected to launch a set of event organizer tools allowing venues and promoters to directly benefit from group purchase technology through primary ticketing services.
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