Tech entrepreneur Scott Fletcher has invested £260,000 into a Lancashire-based disruptive ticketing platform.
Vibe Tickets was founded by Luke Massie, 23, in 2013 and allows real fans to buy and sell tickets but also make new like-minded friends at the biggest events.
Massie has just launched a £600,000 crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube and raised £310,000 in the first 24 hours, including £260,000 from serial investor Fletcher.
The founder and chairman of specialist private cloud and managed services provider ANS has recently invested six figure sums into Manchester Agency Digital Next and Jonny Cadden’s Business Rocks event in the city.
Speaking to BusinessCloud, Fletcher said: “Luke is a force of nature. His vision and passion is infectious and goes to show that age is irrelevant when it comes to business.
“He’s been praised by Sir Richard Branson after making it to the final three in the #VOOM 2016 Virgin Media competition but he’s hungry to learn more.
“Vibe Tickets has the potential to disrupt the industry and that really appeals to me. I’ve got no doubt Luke will smash his £600,000 target but I think it’s vital that tech entrepreneurs like me get behind great businesses and great people.”
Massie will be speaking at BusinessCloud’s ‘meet the disrupters’ event in Manchester on September 15th.
He is making 10 per cent of Vibe available to investors on Crowdcube, including fans, followers, friends and venture capitalists. He’s valued his business at £6m.
Vibe has already raised over £400,000 – including £200,000 from technology entrepreneur Matt Newing – but Massie said the present round of funding would take the business to the “next level”.
He said: “I’m delighted to get someone of Scott’s stature on board and it shows his faith in me and the product.
“Clearly he’s by far the biggest investor to date but we’ve also got 80 other people to commit money into Vibe Tickets and that shows its broad appeal.
“We’re a fan-to-fan business and now real fans can invest as little as £10 in a genuine, ethical ticketing platform. It’s a month-long crowdfunding campaign so there’s still plenty of time for people to get involved.”