The Russian p2p ticket marketplace Eticket4 has sold 13% of its stock to Hong Kong-based GTSystem International in exchange for a $325,000 capital injection. The whole project was estimated at $2.5 million, Russian business daily Kommersant reported, citing exchanges with company founder Daniil Kruchinin.
According to the official company register, the deal took place on July 4.
Kruchinin said the capital injection will be used for marketing purposes. It will also help the company create a mobile app and launch a website called Afisha.Eticket4 that will provide news coverage for events in different parts of Russia.
Launched in 2016, Eticket4 allows individual sellers to sell tickets they own in exchange for a commission ranging from 10% to 30%. The company claims it serves 90,000 users a month, Russian tech daily VC.ru reported.
In 2018, Eticket4’s revenues accounted for 145 million rubles (about $2.3 million at the current exchange rate), with 57 million rubles (about $897,000) in sales and a net profit of 3.3 million rubles (nearly $52,000). According to Crunchbase, in February 2018, the service attracted $700,000 in an initial coin offering.
GTSystem estimates the global ticket resale market at $10 billion. However, the Russian market is hard to estimate because of lack of transparency, said a spokesman for GTSystem. The biggest global ticket marketplaces include StubHub and Viagogo.
As EWDN reported earlier, the e-ticketing scene in Russia has seen a lot of activity recently. In June, Russian Internet giant Yandex acquired the exclusive rights to the TicketSteam e-ticketing system and its rival Mail.Ru Group acquired a minority stake in Ticketing Platform. In July 2018, TCS Group Holding, a major provider of online retail financial services in Russia known as Tinkoff, acquired a stake in leading ticket sales company Kassir.ru.
