eBay acquires Spanish ticketing platform Ticketbis to expand StubHub’s presence in 47 new markets

Online marketplace eBay has announced plans to acquire Ticketbis, a Spanish online ticketing platform that operates in 47 markets.

Ticketbis has secured more than $25 million in funding since it was founded in 2009. It counts offices in Bilbao and Madrid and operates across Southern Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

Founded out of San Francisco in 2000 by former Stanford Business School students and investment bankers, StubHub became a major force in the secondary ticketing market space, leading to its eventual acquisition by eBay in a $310 million deal in 2007. But earlier this year, StubHub revealed plans to take on the mighty Ticketmaster with an all-new platform for both primary and secondary tickets. And just last week, StubHub became the first official jersey sponsor in NBA history when it expanded its existing relationship with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Ticketbis represents yet another notable exit by a European startup to a U.S. firm, and the deal comes just as eBay completed the acquisition of ExpertMaker, an artificial intelligence startup from Sweden. In Ticketbis, eBay and StubHub have an easy passage into dozens of lucrative new markets and are saved from having to build the necessary local infrastructure to sell tickets.

“The acquisition of Ticketbis will enable us to significantly scale StubHub’s international footprint,” said Devin Wenig, president and CEO of eBay, in a press release “eBay’s global presence will help StubHub acquire new customers as it expands into markets outside of the U.S.”

StubHub is perhaps best known in the U.S., though it has also operated in the U.K. since 2012, Germany since 2015, and Mexico as of this month. The acquisition is expected to close in the next couple of months, and although terms of the deal have not been officially disclosed, TechCrunch reports the figure to be $165 million.