Dice Books $65M For Its Event Discovery And Ticketing Platform
Live and live events are making a comeback in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and today a London-based startup announced funding to capitalize on this by building an event technology business. Dice, an events and ticketing platform, has raised $65 million in funding that will be used to expand across the US and Europe. The funding comes after a year in which Dice served "millions" of fans (an undisclosed number), 55,000 artists and more than 10,000 venues, festivals and promoters in nearly 30 cities across two regions. Payment is made by the event organizer.
Dice CEO and co-founder Phil Hutcheon told TechCrunch that this investment and Dice's growth goals are focused on live events rather than live streaming. In the latter arena, companies have certainly (and predictably) stepped up during the pandemic, but business has been mostly in decline lately.
“There is nothing quite like live streaming, and live streaming makes sense during this pandemic, but once the pandemic is over we will quickly return to live streaming,” he said. One such acquisition was a "huge success" for Boiler Room, which Hutcheon describes as "the world's largest electronic music publisher" and because the company is one of the largest producers of IRL-style events. . He noted that despite the "steady growth" in the number of live events, with one exception, festivals are still "bang".
While Dice provides opening and ticketing services for other live events such as drag comedy and stand-up comedy, Dice's backbone is music. However, MUSIC (using capital letters) – spearheaded a venture capital investment ring led by musician and music executive Matt Pincus that raised $200 million last year to prop up music tech startups.
The round also included Structural Capital and Ahdritz Holding LLC, led by Willard Ahdridge, founder and president of IP license-tracing technology startup Cobalt Music; Previous sponsors included Exor Ventures and Mirabaud Lifestyle Fund.
In the past, SoftBank co-founders Tony Fadel, Xavier Neal, and DeepMind have been key supporters of the company. "They're all still very supportive, the DICE shareholders, and I'm in regular contact with all of them," said Phil Hutcheon.
Hutcheon did not disclose the company's valuation, other than that the company has more than $400 million in funding in 2021.
“DICE is the opposite company. During the pandemic, people didn't go to concerts." “Since the summer of 2021, every month at DICE has been bigger than the last. Being an "opposite company", our rating has increased since the last round, which is good. due to the macro environment.
He also declined to say how much Dice has raised so far, though information from PitchBook suggests it's less than $200 million. The "most" of the last $65 million was equity capital with some debt, although the company did not share the actual proportion.
Discovery has been a mainstay in industries such as e-commerce, social platforms and media for many years. It is important that users learn to navigate (and eventually interact/purchase/browse/click/search) among the many options and content presented to them. One of the main dilemmas in this game of discovery involves the domain of graphics: should platforms build algorithms based on their own data, or should they use signals from other platforms to somehow inform themselves.
Hutcheon told me earlier that it builds its database from scratch without using Facebook or other social platforms to figure out what users might like. This means that it took years for these startups to build their platform and finally launch it, but they have stuck to this approach.
“We mostly use our dataset to make recommendations,” he says. “We can use Spotify and Apple Music scanning to gain some advantage, but the correlation between listening data and live attendance data isn't as strong as one might think. You listen to techno all day, but you want to see the band. Or viceversa."
That's why, he adds, about half of Dice's ticket sales come from personal recommendations.
“It took us longer to implement the detection algorithm because we didn't use other data sources, but the investment paid off. We are very happy to have chosen this path”.
Interestingly, while many startups and investors are currently working on AI (especially new developments like generative AI), Hutcheon declined to comment on whether Dice will eventually incorporate it into its platform. You can see how something like a conversation could spark more interaction between potential customers and turn that person into a ticket buyer, but Dice isn't interested in that—at least not what he's currently discussing.
Instead, the company is focusing more on how it can be used for its corporate clients such as venues, producers, and musicians who want to connect with their fans.
In addition to opening recommendations, "another benefit of the data we generate through fan recommendations is that we have an amazing predictive tool," he said, adding that Dice is working on tools that will allow artists, venues and promoters to use these data next year. .
There are many dominant event and ticketing platforms on the market today, and over the years the story has followed a path of consolidation with more and more innovative startups bringing something new (or a new audience) to the market and are increasingly interested in be a great player. These platforms generate a lot of hate because they charge extra for already expensive tickets. This shows that in a market where the economy believes it will never be able to attract smaller players or consumers by itself, there is opportunity, but also a lack of opportunity.
But there are gaps, Pincus said.
"Most ticket companies are ticket companies. DICE is a user platform for ticket buyers. Relationships with fans from all over the world who go to clubs and festivals for fun," said Pincus. “People who enjoy watching shows are the most important ticket consumers. Music, especially as traditional forms of audience interaction – radio, traditional media, DSP algorithms – are challenged as consumer behavior changes DICE is important to fans joining more and more platforms every day.DICE is the gateway to music lovers, a position that allows them to build a leading ticketing business like no other. can do." (founders of Pincus) joins the board of directors in this round.
Hutcheon's mantra "Happy fans, happy dead" is embodied in the fact that the company has repeatedly built "faith" in its users' hot shows. “Exclusives matter, and fans are used to using Dice to buy tickets, just like you go to a music streaming service to listen to it,” he says. "It's hard to break this habit, especially since listening to music is very loud."
