Current secondary ticket exchange systems are fraught with a variety of issues, including tickets being resold at prices far above face value, exorbitant fees and other additional costs, not to mention the risk of purchasing counterfeit or invalid tickets, resulting in a frustrating user experience.
CrowdVolt aims to revolutionize the space with a user-centric bid-and-sell ticket marketplace that aims to provide buyers with affordable ticket prices with full transparency. A graduate of Y Combinator's Winter 2024 batch, CrowdVolt operates on a model similar to sneaker resale marketplace StockX, where buyers bid on tickets and sellers set their asking price. If the bid matches the asking price, the transaction is completed.
The platform's bid-and-sell model could be appealing to concertgoers because it lets them specify their desired price. Traditionally, secondary ticket markets have focused on how much sellers are willing to sell their tickets for, but CrowdVolt changes that. CrowdVolt allows buyers and sellers to message each other, making ticket purchases less anonymous.
Earlier this year, CrowdVolt raised $1.4 million in funding from angel investors including Brickyard VC, Goodwater Capital, Pioneer Fund, and YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim. The company plans to use the new funding to expand into additional markets in the coming months, starting with Miami, Chicago, and various cities in California. The funding will also be used for product development.
Image credit: CrowdVolt
CrowdVolt launched in late January and caters specifically to rave and EDM (electronic dance music) fans. It's currently only available in New York, with the majority of its venues in Brooklyn, a popular area for EDM fans.
The startup journey began with three friends, Max Hammer (CEO), Josh Carroll (CTO), and Alia Mohseni (COO), who share a deep love for EDM. They were personally frustrated with the current ticket sales process, so they created a platform designed to meet the needs of buyers.
“One of our co-founders [Mohseni] Being a DJ, I started going to a lot of events. [ticketing] “The most frictionless and opaque process ranges from launching six to nine months in advance to an unclear buying process with industry incumbents,” Hammer told TechCrunch. “Other platforms don't have buyer intent. We have a truly level marketplace.”
The startup's launch comes at a time when one of the biggest companies, Ticketmaster, is struggling: Not only has it come under fire for charging too much for its services, but the Department of Justice recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against it for monopoly practices, and the company was also hacked and admitted to a data breach and identity theft.
CrowdVolt has grown to over 3,000 active users across roughly 250 events listed.
The platform is currently only available on the web, but the company plans to release a mobile app within six months.