Around this time of year, tech bloggers in Berlin become lesser-spotted creatures in their own offices. That is because they are spending a great deal of time at the multitude of events and conferences that sprout up every springtime – indeed, events are a crucial part of tech scenes around the world. But ‘personal experiences’ is also a rapidly expanding space in general terms, and there is a fight going on to grab market share.
And so enters a new player: Vamos, the Berlin-based startup which up till now had been focusing on event discovery by pulling in details from Facebook, is expanding into event ‘inspiration’ and ticketing purchases.
The company has already started down that road, with Converse becoming the first paying customer this month with three events promoted through mobile banners, newsletters and web pages. The last of the three is taking place tonight.
It’s no surprise that Vamos – which secured a six-digit seed round last October – would be looking to muscle in on the online event ticketing market, which is reportedly worth €50 billion in worldwide revenue a year. And mobile is the way forward, with rival Ticketfly3 seeing purchases on mobile platforms double last year.
Luis-Daniel Alegria, Vamos co-founder and CEO, said: “We’re full of belief that Vamos will become the go-to source for events much like what Google is for websites today. Just like them, our engineering challenge will lie in crafting better and more personalised event results for our users.”
He added that the team is currently working on its next round of funding to improve the platform’s recommendations, as well as trying for a higher conversion rate when selling tickets.