Lyte Locks In $15 Million In Financing

– Lyte

Lyte, Inc., the ticketing platform that integrates with primary ticketing services to allow venues and event owners to control ticket resale and refunds, has secured $15 million in Series A financing Oct. 8 from investors including Bernie Cahill and Activist Artist Management.

Lyte’s emphasis on return-ability of tickets has apparently turned enough heads that it will gain access to more resources, and presumably grow.

The full list of investors includes Cahill and Greg Suess’s Activist Artist Management, former Pandora CTO Chris Martin, entrepreneurs Matt Mickiewicz and Rob Goldberg, and venture capital companies Jackson Square Ventures, Industry Ventures, Accomplice Ventures, Coelius Capital and Correlation Ventures.

“We made a foundational bet we could build a platform and marketplace that included and benefited all of the folks with financial and emotional investment in this industry – rights holders, talent, enterprise ticketing companies as well as fans,” Lyte CEO Ant Taylor said in a statement. “This raise is a validation of that bet. It’s a win for our partners and the future of the live events ecosystem.”

Pollstar spoke with Lyte’s Head of Business andCorporate Development Lawrence Peryer earlier this year when the company reported that it had matched its entire 2018 revenue figures in Q1 of 2019. A representative of the company told Pollstar Lyte has saved fans $8 million this year. 

“Joe the fan is not trying to be a semi-professional ticket broker, he just wants his money back. When you want to return a sweater, they don’t tell you to sell it on eBay. When you make it easy [to return], two or three clicks, people use it,” Peryer told Pollstar of the company’s rapid growth. “[The industry] has made event ticketing one of the few consumer products that you can’t return. Once you change that, people start wondering, ‘Why can’t it be this easy everywhere?’ … We get emails through helpdesk asking why they can’t return tickets to other shows.”

Lyte partnered with Ticketfly in 2017 after getting a chance to demonstrate its efficacy at BottleRock Napa Valley in 2016.