Techstars Music Graduate Hurdl Raises $2.5 Million For Concert, Live Event Data Collection
Live event data startup Hurdl has raised $2.5 million in seed funding. The experiential marketing company has built an analytics platform for collecting and analyzing data from concert and other live event attendees.
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Event analytics startup Hurdl's new $2.5 million seed funding round came from current and previous athletes and executives from NBA, NHL, CBS, 300 Entertainment, LaCorte Ventures, Turner Sports, CNBC, PRG and Morris Lighting and Sound.
Hurdl was among the first 11 member graduating class of respected accelerator Techstars' new Music program, led by former Twitter Music and Topspin executive Bob Moczydlowsky.
Since officially launching in November 2016, Hurdl has completed activations at the CMA Awards and Jack Daniel's Music City Midnight New Year’s Eve Celebration, in addition to clients such as The Chainsmokers, Calvin Harris, Styx, Keith Urban, Walmart and AT&T Fiber.
Hurdl Process from Hurdl on Vimeo.
What Is Hurdl? deadmau5 Found Out
“Having spent more than 20 years as a senior executive in entertainment and events, I have often looked out at huge crowds in venues thinking ‘Who are these people? How do we make fans in the nosebleed seats feel closer?',” said Ezra Kucharz, former president of digital media at CBS. “With Hurdl, the next-gen event experience is born, one where we can engage with entire audiences in real time without an app.”
In April 2017, Hurdl completed a four-show activation test at a series of deadmau5 events at the Shrine Auditorium in LA, and discovered that 66% of deadmau5 audiences generated up to 24% new click throughs to a link sent via SMS after the show. Analytics from the activations also found that nine out of 10 concert-goers completed five or more questions, allowing Hurdl to create a more personalized and interactive show while learning actionable data about each attendee. Retargeting against Hurdl’s data produced a 364% increase in the number of conversions compared to traditional advertising around fans who simply “like” or “follow” brands or artists on social media.
“For example, we learned that deadmau5 has more PlayStation users in L.A. than Xbox users, and that their favorite music streaming platform is Spotify, with less than one percent on Amazon's new streaming platform,” said McHugh. “Insights like these enable us to connect artists and brands with highly qualified marketing leads, knowing how best to reach and engage with each individual fan based on their unique preferences."
