Eventbrite buys Ticketfly from Pandora
As rumored they might, Pandora has sold Ticketfly which they bought in 2015, but which ended up being a distraction to their core business. The new buyer is somebody much more invested in the ticket business, fellow ticket company Eventbrite. Marketwatch reports:
Pandora Media Inc. P, +6.30% announced Friday a $200 million deal to sell its Ticketfly business to Eventbrite, which includes $150 million in cash and a $50 million note payable to Pandora.
The deal was simultaneously announced along with the news that Sirius XM is making a $480 million investment in Pandora, through the purchase of Series A preferred stock.
A Sirius XM deal has been rumored for a while, and had it gone through with Ticketfly still included, that would have made Ticketfly and Ticketmaster cousins.
As Ticketfly’s About Us page says, Ticketfly was founded in 2008 by Andrew Dreskin, the co-founder and CEO of TicketWeb, the first company to sell tickets online in 1995, and Dan Teree, the former president of TicketWeb.
Ticketmaster bought Ticketweb at some point, and now both of them are part of Live Nation.
Liberty Media own Sirius XM, and approximately 34% of Live Nation.
