Excite@Home, Redwood City, CA, invested $15 million in sports and entertainment ticket vendor Tickets.com as the portal and Internet service provider tries to further establish itself in what it thinks will become one of the top five online commerce categories.
The net powerhouse also agreed to inject a further $40 million into Tickets.com should the deal receive regulatory approval, which Excite@Home expects within 30 days. The company leads a round of planned financing that will total $85 million. The Cox Interactive Media unit of Cox Enterprises is another investor.
Tickets.com also agreed to pay $25 million back to Excite@Home over the course of a “long-term strategic content relationship.” Tickets.com will sell tickets and provide its event and ticketing information through the Excite portal and through the @Home broadband Internet service.
Officials at Excite@Home were not available for comment, but the company said in a prepared statement that the deal “underscores on two of our core strategies [of] investing financially in our partners and expanding our e-commerce opportunities with local content.”
Excite@Home did not disclose how much of Tickets.com it will own following the agreements.
As part of the content relationship, Web users will be able to search for and buy tickets for events in their local areas, the company said. Excite@Home already operates a service that finds local events by zip code, and the firm operates two sites designed to let people search for information on area television and movies.
