Santa Monica-based private equity firm Clearlake Capital Group announced this month that it acquired Ticket Evolution, an end-to-end software provider for the event ticketing industry. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition was executed with the help of Clearlake Operating Advisor Sam Soni and completed through VictoryLive, an event management and ticketing technology platform backed by Clearlake and Soni.
Ticket Evolution manages sports and events tickets on behalf of professional ticket resellers and rightsholders through an established business-to-business marketplace with distribution capabilities.
The company’s offerings include both a full service and an automated software-as-a-service platform that provides operational needs like ticket fulfillment and delivery to distributors. It also has a pricing intelligence platform that changes ticket prices in response to market fluctuations or pricing strategies.
Ticket Evolution will now work in combination with the VictoryLive platform in a deal that Clearlake said would “provide more optionality for rightsholders, resellers and affiliates by partnering with event management and ticketing technology and data providers.”
Soni, who helped complete the acquisition, is a leader in the multi-billion-dollar premium ticket and sports hospitality event industry. He formerly worked as the chief executive, founder and chairman of PrimeSport, a ticketing and event management company.
“We are excited to add Ticket Evolution to our platform and believe that this acquisition represents an opportunity to accelerate value creation and drive optionality for rightsholders, resellers, and affiliates,” Soni said in a statement. “Ticket Evolution continues to leverage its technology to drive efficiencies in the ticketing market and is enabling the shift to fully digital and mobile ticketing experiences.”
Ticket Evolution Chief Executive Curtis Cheng said Soni’s relationships with rightsholders combined with Clearlake’s capital and sector expertise will be the keys to growing Ticket Evolution.
