SeatGeek gets $550K, Wall Street Journal deal to advance online ticket search

Online ticket-search firm SeatGeek has landed $550,000 in funding from a group of investors and signed a distribution deal with the Wall Street Journal, the company confirmed to VentureBeat today.

The news was first reported by TechCrunch.

SeatGeek uses algorithms to match the best deal with a customer’s specific needs for an event. Event-goers can then see thousands of potential pricing and seating options available for concerts and sporting events on the secondary market.

Under the terms of the deal, The Wall Street Journal Online will soon feature ticketing links provided by SeatGeek, giving readers one click access to area-specific deals in sports, concert and theater events.

The firm told VentureBeat that although it had been previously reported the paper would provide links on its Sports and Local pages, no specific placement has been hashed out quite yet.

SeatGeek said it will use the infusion to beef up its product and engineering teams. That money will be much-needed as the startup continues to grow. It recently revamped its website, with a newly redesigned home page, venue maps that allow fans to zoom in and find seats at the best prices, and a concerts page which now lists 10,000 of the most-searched for concerts.

The funding came from a consortium of previous backers PKS Capital, Founder Collective, Stage One Capital, Trisiras Group and angel investors Mark Wachen, Thomas Lehrman, Sunil Hirani, Allen Levinson and Arie Abecassis.

”SeatGeek has a strong vision of how to tap into the multi-billion dollar secondary ticket market,” David Frankel, managing partner of Founder Collective, told VentureBeat. “Their service is really streamlining the event ticket buying process for consumers and the SeatGeek management team is executing impressively.”

The new funding brings the total amount received by the start-up a total investment of over $2 million since its founding in 2009.