StubHub Holding Meetings to Plot IPO This Year: Report

StubHub is reportedly exploring plans to go public later this year, according to a report published Friday by the New York Times. The ticket resale marketplace company has been in preliminary discussions with investment bankers about a possible initial public offering, testing whether investor appetite for tech IPOs has improved.

According to NYT sources, StubHub aims to raise more than $1 billion in its effort. Company executives shared those figures with Wall Street analysts at an investor meeting Thursday, according to one attendee.

Last year, StubHub reportedly considered going public at a valuation of $16.5 billion but postponed those plans amid slower activity in the IPO market and lingering uncertainty in the live events sector. Recent signs suggest the market for tech listings may be heating up, although analysts have cautioned that ticketing companies could see a gradual pullback in post-pandemic spending.

Founded in 2000 by Eric Baker and Jeff Fluhr, StubHub quickly grew into a marketplace for fans to buy and sell tickets to concerts, sports, and other live events. Baker left the company amid tensions with his co-founder and later launched viagogo, a European-focused ticket resale platform. In 2019, viaoggo acquired StubHub for $4 billion, combining the two brands under one umbrella.

The timing of the acquisition came just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the live events industry to a standstill. Lockdowns devastated StubHub’s core business, slashing revenue by roughly 95 percent. The company rebounded as venues reopened, with audiences once again purchasing concert and event tickets en masse.

Executives at StubHub maintain that demand remains strong. Gross ticket sales surged nearly 50 percent in the last quarter of 2024 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the attendee of Thursday’s investor meeting. A company representative did not respond to NYT requests for comment regarding the IPO talks.

If successful, StubHub would follow suit of Vivid Seats (NASDAQ: SEAT) and Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) as public traded entities in the live events ticketing space. Additionally, SeatGeek recently announced their consideration to move public; last month, it added CitiGroup and Wells Fargo to its planned IPO.