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Friday 9 December 2011

Ticket Search Engine FanSnap Acquired By Shopping Site NexTag, But Employees May Get $0


Nextag fansnap Done

Comparison shopping site NexTag has made its fifth acquisition in 15 months, buying event ticket search engine FanSnap. Unfortunately, FanSnap employees and any other common stockholders won’t get anything out of the deal, according to a source close to the transaction. Apparently the purchase price was low, and FanSnap had taken over $15 million in funding primarily from General Catalyst Partners. That means even if the investors were paid back, there’d be nothing left for common stockholders.
There were high hopes for FanSnap, which lets users search for tickets across big providers like StubHub and eBay, leading us to liken it to a Kayak for event tickets back in 2009. Heck, its backer General Catalyst was also a major investor in Kayak, and FanSnap was founded by StubHub CMO Mike Janes. But it seems that FanSnap didn’t gain enough traction, and eventually its technology that surfaced low priced event tickets became more widely available, leading to the reportedly low sum paid for the company.
The ticket search engine should do well under the NexTag umbrella, though, which can drive it traffic. By acquiring FanSnap, NexTag will become a one-stop ecommerce shop for coupons, products, entertainment experiences, and lodging. NexTag CEO Jeffrey G. Katz says “customers will be able to scoop up some of the best tickets possible to their favorite sporting or music events, find a room to stay in, and outfit the whole family in related gear.”
FanSnap’s team will relocate to Nextag’s headquarters in San Mateo, CA where they’ll join employees scooped up through NexTag’s other acquisitions. It bought real-time shopping social shopping platform ThingBuzz in October 2011, German comparison shopping site guenstiger.de GmbH in April 2011, and before that NextCoupons, and product review company Wize, Inc.
Source:http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/08/nextag-fansnap/

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