SeatGeek usurps and then acquires ticketing rival FanSnap

SeatGeek is splurging for the holiday by making its very first acquisition.

The ticket search engine announced today that it has purchased ticket aggregator — and biggest rival — FanSnap. It also revealed $2.2 million in new funding.

“FanSnap has consistently been SeatGeek’s most robust competitor in the ticket search engine space,” SeatGeek founder Russ D’Souza told VentureBeat. “Our acquisition of FanSnap is a truly meaningful company milestone for us, and we feel that it will further solidify SeatGeek’s leadership.” 

SeatGeek claims to be the world’s largest ticket search engine. It aggregates tickets for sports, concerts, and theater events from dozens of ticketing sites and presents them in one place.

Using this mother lode of data, SeatGeek’s system analyzes thousands of ticket listings to find the best prices (factoring in shipping and selling fees) and provides interactive maps to help you select your seat.

The engine also makes recommendations to people based on their preferences.

FanSnap was founded in 2007 and raised over $15 million for its ticket comparison search engine. However, it did not live up to expectations and sold to Nextag (and its parent company Wize Commerce) in 2011 for a reportedly low sum.

SeatGeek is now acquiring FanSnap from Nextag and shutting the site down, as of today. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

SeatGeek was founded in 2009 — two years after FanSnap.

“When we started SeatGeek in 2009, FanSnap’s incumbency cast quite a shadow on us,” the company said in a blog post. “FanSnap helped make ticket search a thing.”

All FanSnap pages will now forward to SeatGeek.

SeatGeek is backed by Mousse, Founder Collective, NYC Seed, DreamIt Ventures, Stage One Capital, and Trisiras Group. It has raised nearly $6 million to date and is based in New York City.