Fatsoma closes new funding round to take ticketing platform to WhatsApp

Online ticketing business Fatsoma has closed its second fundraising round in the last seven months to further ramp up growth.

The North West Fund for Digital & Creative has gone back to its portfolio for its latest investment and injected capital into a Twitter and Facebook-based event ticketing platform.

Manchester-based Fatsoma, which was set up in 2006 by a three-man team, is the recipient and will use the undisclosed investment to move its offering beyond Facebook and Twitter to chat applications such as WhatsApp.

Back in April, Fatsoma linked up with the AXM Venture Capital-managed North West Fund for Digital & Creative as well as LateRooms co-founder Chris Allen to close its maiden funding round.

Since then, Fatsoma has gone on to post figures which show that 8,000 businesses in the UK use its services. The business is predicting revenues of £7.5 million during 2013 and now has 20 staff.

More on the North West Fund for Digital & Creative:

Ben Taylor, co-founder and director of Fatsoma, comments, ‘The period in between Fatsoma’s initial investment and where we are today has been a hugely exciting time for the business.

‘Not only have we seen our efforts in building a better platform fro promoters pay off with promoters selling more tickets than ever before, but the benefits have come full circle as our bottom line growth has accelerated beyond our initial expectations.’

Taylor adds that, although Facebook and Twitter have been good for sales, the business is now looking towards other applications such as WhatsApp, Kik and iMessage as sources of growth.

David Smith, investment director at AXM Venture Capital, says that since first backing Fatsoma, the fund has noticed a ‘huge increase’ in revenues in line with the delivery of its rebuilt 2.0 version.

‘We are pleased to be able to support the company by making a second round investment to further accelerate this rate or progress.’

The North West Fund for Digital & Creative is a £15 million pot which is financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the European Investment Bank, and provides finance ranging from £50,000 to £1.5 million to businesses in, or relocating to, the North West of England.

Hunter Ruthven

Bernard Williamson

Hunter was the Editor for GrowthBusiness.co.uk from 2012 to 2014, before moving on to Caspian Media Ltd to be Editor of Real Business.

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Venture capital funding