Hive, a marketing platform built for live events, has raised $27 million in Series B funding from Frontier Growth. The platform connects purchase data with email, SMS, advertising and CRM tools through more than 40 ticketing integrations, including Ticketmaster, AXS, Eventim, Etix, Tixr and DICE. According to Hive, the platform has helped generate more than $1 billion in ticket sales. The investment will support global expansion, deepen ticketing, data and advertising integrations, and add new AI-powered assistants.
Meanwhile, Ticketmaster is strengthening its AI capabilities through both an acquisition and new leadership appointments. The company acquired Ragie.ai, an AI startup that bills itself as a context engine for agents, assistants and apps, for an undisclosed sum to accelerate AI development and strengthen infrastructure.
Ticketmaster also appointed three new technology executives. Jim Freeman, former Amazon VP who helped launch Prime Video and later led engineering and product at Zalando, joined as Chief Technology Officer to oversee global engineering, platform modernization, AI transformation and resilience. Rachel Smith, formerly of Block, was named the first Senior Vice President of Data Science & Machine Learning to establish Ticketmaster’s first dedicated data science and machine learning organization, focusing on fraud detection, bot mitigation and fan experience improvements. Chuck Mortimore, with experience at Disney, Stripe, Visa and Salesforce, became Senior Vice President of Product, leading product strategy for identity, access and trust to help fans securely access and manage accounts and tickets.
These moves come as the live ticketing industry faces regulatory scrutiny. The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission filed suit against ticket reseller REPS & Co, alleging violations of the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act. According to the suit, REPS & Co violated federal laws to resell tickets for more than $120 million in profit by opening thousands of accounts on ticketing platforms including Ticketmaster and AXS to circumvent purchase limits.
Key facts
- Hive raised $27 million in Series B funding from Frontier Growth for its live events marketing platform
- Hive has helped generate more than $1 billion in ticket sales through 40+ ticketing integrations
- Ticketmaster acquired AI startup Ragie.ai for an undisclosed sum
- Ticketmaster hired three new senior technology executives focused on AI, data science and product strategy
- The DOJ and FTC sued ticket reseller REPS & Co for allegedly profiting $120 million through BOTS Act violations