From seed to stage: how Swoop helped GoToBeat revolutionise gig booking

Live music platform GoToBeat found Swoop gave them the pick of the term sheets

Today’s stadium-filling acts generate big money and are well catered for. But if you’ve ever tried to get tickets for a small gig – or you’re a venue trying to find a band to fill the floor – you’ll know that grassroots gigs aren’t always giving the best experience. 

Max Busin is the Founder and CEO of GoToBeat. A musician and serial entrepreneur in his native Italy, Max has experience of growing a media company, Blasting News, up to 150 employees and 100 million unique monthly readers.

He explains his latest venture, GoToBeat: 

“GoToBeat is a platform to help people find and attend gigs they’d enjoy. We use data and our platform to pick the right artists and put them in the right venue. It’s also a ticketing platform, so we are able to take over the admin of organising a concert.”

GoToBeat launched in 2022 and to date has sold 30,000 tickets for around 30-35 concerts a month, mostly in small capacity venues that can cater for up to 2,000 attendees. The company employs a team of seven people plus 10 freelancers helping to run events.

How Swoop helped

Max reached out to Swoop on a personal recommendation when he needed to raise seed funding for the business: 

“I wasn’t aware of Swoop but one of my advisors had worked with Swoop in the past and put us in touch with Tom. With my background, I had thought about going through the SEIS raise by myself but the more we talked, the more I realised that building a relationship with Swoop could be really useful in the longer term.”

Max had decided to raise funds in February, which meant closing a deal by the end of March to hit the end of year SEIS deadline. Max said that working with Swoop was a positive experience: 

“We were looking to raise and Swoop gave us an introduction to four funds. One was not a fit, so we passed on them. Three gave us term sheets, we picked the one we liked the most and the deal was done.”

Max says the money will be used for developing the technology, improving the infrastructure and build for the next phase of the company. GoToBeat is also looking to break out of the London region where it has been focussed and expand in Manchester, Brighton and beyond.

“With the next round, we’re going to be looking at going international,” says Max. “Of course we’ll be asking how Swoop can help. Why wouldn’t we?”

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