Innercrowd raises €750,000 to expand festival ticket platform
The company plans to grow in European markets beyond the Netherlands, using WhatsApp shops and AI conversations to help festivals sell tickets.
Innercrowd has raised €750,000 to support international growth, with plans to expand its operations beyond the Netherlands into other European markets. The company says it works with over a hundred festival organisers across the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Bulgaria and Poland.
The platform offers fans who register for presales or early-bird sales a way to purchase tickets through a shop in WhatsApp. AI agents respond to individual queries and guide purchases, allowing conversations to continue when marketing staff are offline.
Innercrowd says its campaigns achieve conversion rates averaging 50 per cent higher than email-based presales. It also encourages fans to promote festival line-ups, share their own content, invite friends and sell tickets. Organisers can repurpose fans’ material for their marketing.
Benjamin Havenaar, who founded Innercrowd with Job Vink in 2024, said festivals were competing more intensely for audiences’ attention. He argued that recommendations between friends offered a different way to reach prospective attendees than paid advertising.
The investment comes against a backdrop of slower ticket buying, rising costs and a crowded festival market. The European Festival Survey 2025 found that only 17 per cent of the festivals surveyed had sold out.
