Eric Baker’s long, winding road to taking StubHub public

Ticket reseller StubHub went nationalist connected Wednesday. Although StubHub’s shares closed 6% beneath their IPO terms of $23.50, valuing the institution astatine implicit $7 billion, the nationalist debut itself is simply a testament to the co-founder’s decades-long perseverance.

StubHub CEO Eric Baker co-founded the institution with Jeff Fluhr successful 2000 portion they were attending the Stanford Graduate School of Business. This was soon aft the dotcom bubble burst and NASDAQ crashed, but the brace didn’t springiness up.

“Stupid competitors went distant and galore of america got a existent accidental to physique a lasting concern aft getting done that dip,” he said connected a Bessemer Venture Partners podcast successful 2022.

A mates of years later, the concern was growing, but Baker and Fluhr didn’t spot eye-to-eye connected the absorption of the company. In 2004, Baker was pushed from the company.

A twelvemonth later, Baker relocated to London, wherever helium founded Viagogo, a StubHub for Europe. Growing Viagogo had plentifulness of challenges, but helium dreamt of merging it with StubHub, according to the podcast.  

In 2019, erstwhile eBay decided to rotation disconnected StubHub — it had purchased the summons seller successful 2007 — Baker seized the opportunity. He secured backing from investors, including WestCap, Madrone Capital Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners, purchasing the institution for $4.05 billion.

Just aft the merger was completed, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. With unrecorded events cancelled and planetary quarantines successful effect, the company’s gross collapsed.

The institution scraped by and erstwhile unrecorded events rebounded, the summons reseller gross grew importantly driven by hugely fashionable events similar Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour, and the Super Bowl.

In the archetypal 4th of 2025, StubHub’s gross grew by 10% to $397.6 cardinal successful the archetypal 4th compared to the aforesaid play past year.

“Reflecting connected our journey, I americium amazed astatine however acold we’ve come,” helium said successful his S-1 founder’s missive erstwhile helium was, after years of planning to spell public, connected the precipice of an opening day. “We person successfully navigated galore challenges, including the unprecedented interaction of COVID-19, which brought a halt to unrecorded events successful 2020.”

According to the S1, Baker owns 4.7% of the company, meantime StubHub’s investors Madrone Partners, WestCap, and Bessemer Venture Partners clasp 24.5%, 12.3%, and 8.8%, respectively.