Ticket reseller StubHub was released on Wednesday. StubHub’s stock was 6% below the IPO price of $23.50 and valued the company at over $7 billion, but the public debut itself is a testament to the co-founder’s decades of perseverance.
StubHub CEO Eric Baker co-founded with Jeff Fleur in 2000 while attending Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. This was shortly after the dotcom bubble burst and the Nasdaq crashed, but the pair didn’t give up.
“The stupid competitors have left, and many of us have had a real opportunity to build a permanent business after getting through that dip,” he said in the 2022 Bessemer Venture Partners Podcast.
A few years later, the business was growing, but Baker and Fleur didn’t look at the company’s direction. In 2004, Baker was pushed out of the company.
A year later, Baker moved to London, where he founded Viagogo, a European stub hub. According to the podcast, growing Bygogo had many challenges, but he dreamed of combining it with StubHub.
In 2019, when eBay decided to spin off StubHub (which bought ticket sellers in 2007), Baker seized the opportunity. He secured support from investors such as Westcap, Madrone Capital Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners, and bought the company for $4.05 billion.
The Covid-19 pandemic hit was soon after the merger was completed. The company’s revenue collapsed as live events were cancelled and global quarantine was enabled.
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When the company was scraped away when the live event recovered, ticket reseller revenue was significantly driven by highly popular events such as Taylor Swift’s ERAS tour, Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour and the Super Bowl.
In the first quarter of 2025, StubHub revenues rose 10% in the first quarter to $397.6 million compared to the same period last year.
“Looking back on our journey, I am amazed at how far we have come,” he said in a letter from the founder of the S-1 on the first day’s cliff after planning to make it public for many years. “We have successfully navigated many challenges, including the unprecedented impact of Covid-19, which stopped live events in 2020.”
According to S1, Baker owns 4.7% of the company, during which StubHub investors Madrone Partners, Westcap and Bessemer Venture Partners hold 24.5%, 12.3% and 8.8%, respectively.
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