Tix.Africa, a self-service ticketing platform for event creators in Nigeria, has secured a six-figure pre-seed funding. The funding round was led by HoaQ, with participation from a number of private equity investors, and will enable Tix Africa to build its technology to scale its events apps. The startup also plans to expand operations to Ghana and East Africa in the coming months.

Tix.Africa launched in 2019 to solve the challenges of ticketing live events in Lagos. The founders have successfully run the Eat Drink Lagos Food Festival since 2015 and as a result of encountering challenges of accurately collating guest details, payments and ticketing the events, built Tix to plug the gap in user data readily available to event organizers under the company’s original name of Festival Coins. The platform currently makes it easy for organizers to create and monetize live or virtual events, enabling the creation of a customizable event page, secure payment collection via Paystack, and giving guests a seamless way to book and attend live events.

The new capital raised will be deployed to expand Tix Africa’s development team, revamping its organizer mobile app, developing additional products, and launching Tix Pro – a paid version of Tix offered on a recurring subscription basis. The company also plans to scale operations to Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, and Egypt in the second half of 2021.

Tix Africa CEO, Folayemi Agusto, said of the pre seed capital raised: “Nigeria has some of the best events you can attend – no one does private gatherings or public events and festivals like us. We want to continue providing the best tech-enabled solution for event organisers and attendees so that each event is a seamless, accessible experience from the moment tickets are booked, right through to arriving and gaining entry to the actual event.

“The new capital will enable us to scale quicker and to integrate the currently separate products and services we offer, including an app offering event attendees a marketplace where they can buy, trade and resell tickets securely. We’re really excited to expand our platform to other markets across the continent, potentially enabling users to attend events they may otherwise not have known about.”

The hospitality and event sector in Sub Saharan Africa is worth tens of billions of dollars and was one of the sectors significantly impacted by COVID-19 lockdown measures. Since lockdown restrictions began to ease, Tix Africa has also been working on offering virtual events integrated with Zoom. The company’s revenue grew 90% year-on-year in H1 2021 and the team is working on developing Tix Africa’s own native virtual meeting space for its users. As part of its new development, Tix will also enable users to store balances in a digital wallet and transfer this balance between events for payments on the company’s rfid wristbands.

Joe Kinvi, Managing Partner at HoaQ added: “We are delighted to back a truly enterprising and innovative team. Folayemi and Nosa deeply understand this space and have built Tix.Africa to cater for the markets they will be serving. We are confident that their vision to adapt their offering and expand their tech team and product offerings will fuel their continued growth and development in the coming years.”