Hive, a marketing platform for the live events business, has raised USD $27 million in a Series B round from growth equity firm Frontier Growth.
More than 1,600 venues, promoters, and festivals use the platform, which Hive says has helped its customers generate more than USD $1 billion in ticket sales.
Hive CEO and co-founder Ian Roberts says live events have “always been a data problem disguised as a marketing problem.”
Hive announced the round today (October 21) and says the funding will go toward product development, more ticketing and data integrations, and international expansion.
Hive draws ticket buyer and event data from more than 40 ticketing platforms, including Ticketmaster, AXS, Eventim, Etix, Tixr, and DICE.
Event teams use that data to build audiences by purchase history, location, artist, and genre, and then reach them through email, SMS, and Meta ad campaigns. Campaigns can also be targeted by show, market, on-sale timing, and audience segment.
Hive says that across live entertainment, ticketing and marketing data “often sit in separate systems, making it difficult to reach the right fans and measure which campaigns effectively sell tickets.”
Hive‘s reporting tools show revenue alongside open, click-through, and conversion rates.
The company cites a published case study involving ASM Richmond, the Virginia team of venue management company ASM Global (now Legends Global).
After switching to Hive from Mailchimp in early 2022, ASM Richmond generated more than USD $500,000 in sales tied to email marketing within its first three months on the platform.
“For more than a decade, we have built the infrastructure that connects ticket buyers to the people putting on the show,” said Roberts.
“Frontier Growth understands what we have built and where we are headed, and this partnership gives us the resources to bring that vision to every corner of the live industry.”
“Frontier Growth understands what we have built and where we are headed, and this partnership gives us the resources to bring that vision to every corner of the live industry.”
Ian Roberts, Hive
“Hive has done something rare in vertical software: the team has built a product that is deeply embedded in its customers’ revenue, then compounded that advantage with proprietary data and network effects,” said Andrew Lindner, Partner at Frontier Growth.
“The live events market is large, underserved by generic tools and moving quickly toward automation. Hive is positioned to lead that shift, and we are excited to partner with Ian and the team as they scale.”
“Hive has done something rare in vertical software: the team has built a product that is deeply embedded in its customers’ revenue, then compounded that advantage with proprietary data and network effects.”
Andrew Lindner, Frontier Growth
The next phase of Hive‘s product roadmap centers on “AI-powered assistants” for event teams.
Hive says the tools are intended to make branded campaigns quicker to put together, cut repetitive work, and help teams turn their data into ticket sales, while keeping organizers “in control of their voice and fan relationships.”
Hive also plans to add further ticketing, data, and advertising integrations.
Frontier Growth is a growth equity firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina, that invests in vertical software and AI companies.
Lindner co-founded the firm with Richard Maclean in 1999, when it operated as Frontier Capital.
Hive is not Frontier’s first investment in live events technology.
In 2022, Frontier Growth invested USD $30 million in atVenu, whose software handles payments and inventory for merchandise and food and beverage sales at concerts and other live events.
At the time, Lindner said Frontier was “drawn to [atVenu’s] unique ability to develop modern technology that is changing the way the live events market does business.”
atVenu went on to secure a USD $130 million equity investment from Sixth Street Growth in October 2024.
In June, Ticketmaster named Hive a Ticketmaster Marketing Partner.
Through that partnership, ticketing activity syncs into Hive automatically, and clients can move existing TM1 Marketing audience lists onto the platform.
“Ticketing and fan insights are the most valuable signals in live entertainment,” Roberts said at the time.
Last month, Fever, the owner of ticketing platform DICE, raised USD $250 million in a round led by EQT.
Fever described that financing as “the largest ever for a live-entertainment tech company.”
A sale of Spanish broadcaster Atresmedia‘s stake in Fever around the same time implied a valuation of roughly EUR €4.5 billion (about USD $5.2 billion), as MBW reported.
Hive was started in 2014 by Roberts and CTO Patrick Hannigan in a University of Waterloo computer lab in Ontario, Canada. It went through Y Combinator‘s Summer 2014 batch a few months later.
The company says it has sent more than 5 billion emails, SMS messages, and Meta ad campaigns on behalf of its customers.Music Business Worldwide
