Leading property tycoon invests £2m in online ticketing firm

Luke Massie

A leading property tycoon has pumped £2m worth of investment into an online ticketing firm.

Nick Candy has bought a 23% in Lancaster based Vibe just a year after the business went into administration.

The firm was set up by Luke Massie – a 26-year-old who grew up on a deprived council estate.

The aim was to set up an inline ticketing business that would cut out the middle-man.

Mr Candy, along with his brother Christian, is known for developing luxury apartment blocks such as One Hyde Park in London.

According to reports filed with Companies House he pumped just over £2m into the business through his private investment fund Candy Ventures.

Luke Massie, the chief executive of Vibe Group, is the business’s largest shareholder.

Vibe Tickets went into administration last year and Luke Massie bought the firm back from administrators.

The Lancaster-based business’ last funding round in October saw it raise £600,000.

Technology firm Vela was one of the main investors.

“We have supported Luke Massie and Vibe Tickets since 2016. We saw the opportunity to support a business that was both highly disruptive and would enable ordinary fans of music and sport, who were being forced to pay excess fees on top of inflated prices, to benefit from a transparent social media platform to buy and sell tickets,” said Vela executive director Antony Laiker.

“Vibe has made strong headway reaching over 84,000 users and has generated over £7m of ticket volume, all with minimal marketing spend. Vibe Tickets is doing what it set out to do – disrupting the big players.”

Luke Massie said: “We’ve grown Vibe Tickets into a main contender for fans to buy and sell tickets and we listened to our customers when we integrated a third-party payments provider to complete the transactions.

“It was a hassle and it cost them money. It went against everything the Vibe Group stands for. We had no choice but to create our own alternative.”

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