StubHub connects fans worldwide to the live experiences they love. Last year alone, people from 200+ countries purchased 40 million tickets from 1 million sellers on StubHub’s marketplace. For Founder and CEO Eric Baker, this week’s public debut is an incredible milestone—one that didn't seem possible not too long ago.
The story of StubHub has been 25 years in the making. It’s an epic innovator’s odyssey, full of dramatic twists and turns—from being a groundbreaking disruptor that created an industry to facing moments that threatened the company’s very future. These challenges ranged from the total shutdown of the industry by COVID-19 just weeks after Eric bought the company back from eBay, to the potential derailment stemming from concerns raised by UK antitrust regulators over the proposed merger between StubHub and viagogo, the ticketing marketplace Eric had founded abroad.
In the face of every challenge, Eric and the world-class StubHub leadership team persevered. In tough markets, the tough companies take share—and StubHub has demonstrated that brilliantly. During those dark days of the pandemic, our WestCap team worked side by side with leadership until the business found a way to not just survive, but grow and scale. WestCap's team stepped in, with our Founder and Managing Partner, Laurence A. Tosi, serving as StubHub’s interim Chief Financial Officer, and WestCap’s in-house creative team, CōLab, supporting product, design, and marketing. We’ve continued our hard work for StubHub all the way through to this week’s listing.
This partnership forged the core principle of our Operating Equity® model at WestCap: when you combine creativity, expertise, and sheer determination with capital, you don't just fund businesses—you build them to prevail across cycles and markets. Our unique WestCap approach has driven our work across our portfolio companies, committing countless hours and resources alongside billions of dollars to create the generational companies of tomorrow.
StubHub represents the type of leading companies we invest in: a fast growing, technology-driven, highly profitable, asset-light marketplace with proven network effects that compound with scale. From all of us at WestCap, congratulations to Eric, President Nayaab Islam, General Counsel Mark Streams, Chief Financial Officer Connie James, and the entire team at StubHub on turning what one reporter dubbed "the worst deal ever" at the time of acquisition into one of our most scaled public outcomes along with Airbnb and Klarna.
StubHub represents the type of leading companies we invest in: a fast growing, technology-driven, highly profitable, asset-light marketplace with proven network effects that compound with scale. From all of us at WestCap, congratulations to Eric, President Nayaab Islam, General Counsel Mark Streams, Chief Financial Officer Connie James, and the entire team at StubHub on turning what one reporter dubbed "the worst deal ever" at the time of acquisition into one of our most scaled public outcomes along with Airbnb and Klarna.
Thank you StubHub for trusting us as partners in your story. And thank you to our partners at J.P. Morgan who invested alongside us as we led the syndicate of investors that bought StubHub, along with Madrone Capital Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Declaration Partners.
The work continues. And we can't wait to help shape what comes next.
WestCap is built to build.
The above is provided as an illustrative example and designed to demonstrate the benefits to portfolio companies of partnering with us. The information is aimed at prospective portfolio companies and not intended to solicit investors, or an offer to purchase any securities. The experiences highlighted may not necessarily represent or be indicative of current, past or future results and experiences with portfolio companies.