For decades, the live entertainment industry has been stitched together by a patchwork of legacy point solutions – separate platforms for ticketing, payments, reservations, and marketing that rarely talk to each other and were never designed to. The result is a quiet operational crisis: venues and event organizers lose critical guest data at every handoff, bear the cost of redundant systems, and have no unified view of who their customers actually are. Speakeasy addresses this by offering the all-in-one operations and intelligence platform for the IRL economy, replacing the fragmented tech stack with a single command center covering ticketing, reservation management, premium booking, payments, POS integrations, CRM, and direct marketing. The platform captures guest-level data across the full event lifecycle – from pre-purchase discovery through in-venue engagement and post-event retargeting – giving operators the insight they need to grow revenue and improve the guest experience simultaneously. Already powering operations for leading live-experience enterprises including TAO Group Hospitality, Fontainebleau Development, E11EVEN, Barstool, Cipriani, and Breakaway Music Festival, the company has delivered 500% year-over-year growth and nearly reached profitability before taking on outside capital.
AlleyWatch sat down with Alex Manavi, Cofounder and CEO of Speakeasy, to learn more about the business, its future plans, recent funding round, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised an oversubscribed $8.8M round led by Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s Positive Sum, with participation from Yamaha Music Innovations Fund and founders and executives from companies including Seamless, TigerConnect, Genius, D.C. United, Swansea City FC, and Tegus. This is our first institutional fundraise. We nearly bootstrapped the business to profitability before raising, proving both the model and market demand before taking outside investment.
Tell us about the product or service that Speakeasy offers.
Speakeasy is the all-in-one operations and intelligence platform powering live experiences. We combine truly best in class, data-driven ticketing, reservations and table management, premium booking experiences, payments, POS integrations, CRM, marketing, and analytics into a single platform for operators across nightlife, sports and entertainment, festivals, membership clubs, and live events.
What inspired the start of Speakeasy?
We built Speakeasy because live experience operators have historically relied on fragmented, outdated software that wasn’t designed to work together and, in many cases, did not work at all. We set out to build the infrastructure and operating system powering the live experience, entertainment, and hospitality industry. We initially founded the company at the University of Chicago. As founders, we had experience on each of the operator, investing and engineering sides. We also all come from technical backgrounds.
How is Speakeasy different?
Most companies in our industry sell point solutions. We replaced the entire technology stack with a unified platform that aligns our incentives with those of our clients and optimizes for customer data and truly functional products. When our clients generate more revenue, operate more efficiently, and create better guest experiences, we succeed alongside them.
Our platform captures significantly more guest data, which is only enabled by powering the entire live experience lifecycle, from discovery and e-commerce to pre-purchase interactions, purchase, arrival, in-event engagement, and post-event analytics, marketing, retargeting, and brand sponsorship opportunities. By combining data from every touchpoint, we’ve built best-in-class solutions that are powerful on their own, but even more valuable when working together. The result is deeper insights, more effective enterprise initiatives, and a better way to operate and grow a live experience business.
We’ve also built a world-class client support machine and maintained a rigorous, product-first approach in an industry that has struggled to innovate for quite some time.
What market does Speakeasy target and how big is it?
We’re building for the IRL economy, one of the fastest-growing categories in a post-AI world. That includes nightlife, sports and entertainment venues, event organizers, festivals, experience creators, and membership clubs. Consumers are spending more on in-person experiences than ever before, while the software infrastructure powering the industry remains significantly underserved. Allied Market Research estimates that the global live-events industry was already a $652.6 billion market in 2022 and is projected to reach $1.18 trillion by 2032.
What’s your business model?
Both a subscription based and reoccurring processing fee revenue model. This depends on the solution.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
We nearly bootstrapped the business to profitability before raising outside capital. Operating efficiently has been part of our DNA since day one, and we continue to build the company with long-term discipline regardless of market conditions.
What was the funding process like?
The round was oversubscribed and included founders, operators, and investors who understand both business building and the live experience industry. We were highly selective about who we brought onto the cap table, and while we did not initially intend to raise venture capital, we saw an opportunity to accelerate in partnership with our investors.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Fundraising while operating through such a high-growth phase of the business.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
“When we first met Speakeasy, the metrics and revenue growth were impressive, but the thing that stood out was the team’s sheer force of will. They see a problem and run straight at it,” said Patrick O’Shaughnessy, CEO and Partner at Positive Sum. “Live events happen outside normal business hours and Speakeasy has built a 24/7 machine to support their clients. Talking to customers we heard the same thing over and over again: they continuously deliver and do it fast.” – Patrick O’Shaughnessy, CEO, Partner, Positive Sum
“I’ve largely steered clear of investing in live events and its ecosystem, which is probably weird considering that so much of my career prior to venture capital revolved around them.
During my time at Live Nation and Ticketmaster, I saw so many venture-backed ticketing companies and event discovery apps come through our doors that never got to scale. For every SeatGeek and Fever, there were countless failures.
And so of course I brought that helpful baggage into our first meeting with Alex Manavi, Tamas An, and Paul S. from Speakeasy.
Their metrics and client base made them hard to overlook. Their willpower, professionalism, and technical talent set against their age and experience moved us closer. Their customer references put us (way) over the edge.” – Andrew Kahn, Managing Partner at Yamaha Music Innovation Fund
We also believe that we benefited from two increasingly common sentiments within the venture and startup communities:
- The systems that stand the test of time will be those that solve real problems, are deeply integrated into their end user’s critical workflows, and are backed by highly committed, human support systems.
- As digital media and software continue to commoditize and the world changes before our eyes, IRL and live experiences become increasingly scarce and valuable. We are building the infrastructure and intelligence layer powering live experiences.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We’re doubling down and investing further in our core solutions, where we’re seeing ample market demand and there is still much left to build. We’re also continuing to invest heavily in predictive intelligence, expanding into new markets and adjacent product verticals, and strengthening the direct relationship between consumers and the live experiences powered by our enterprise partners. We plan to grow revenue even faster over the next six months than we have over the last.
We’re doubling down and investing further in our core solutions, where we’re seeing ample market demand and there is still much left to build. We’re also continuing to invest heavily in predictive intelligence, expanding into new markets and adjacent product verticals, and strengthening the direct relationship between consumers and the live experiences powered by our enterprise partners. We plan to grow revenue even faster over the next six months than we have over the last.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Build as if the capital is never coming, maximize proximity to two important variables, your product and your customers, and focus on solving the actually important and difficult problems.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We have a mandate to become the undisputed, go-to platform for the global live experiences industry and broader IRL economy. We’re still at the very beginning of that journey.
What’s your favorite summer destination in and around the city?
Our Flatiron office!
