Humanitix began as an experiment to see if a company in the SaaS industry could successfully operate as a nonprofit. After about seven years in business, it appears the gamble is paying off.
Based in Australia with a U.S. headquarters in Denver, Humanitix is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit ticketing platform that supports a variety of events from yoga classes and small community meetings to 100,000-person festivals. There have been more than 10,500 U.S.-based events posted on the platform.
Humanitix CEO and co-founder Adam McCurdie said the nonprofit is revamping the ticketing industry with upfront booking fees that are donated to charitable organizations. Each event listed on the platform has a 2.1% booking fee plus a $0.99 fee for each ticket purchased. The fee drops to 1%, plus $0.99, for nonprofits.
These fees, which can be included in the ticket price or passed along to consumers, initially cover Humanitix’s operating costs, but profits are donated to charity. Humanitix is currently donating its profits to Code.org, a nonprofit working to expand students’ access to computer science.
Over the last year, Humanitix has donated more than $1.75 million to its charity partners, including Code.org. It expects to donate $2 million to $2.5 million this year based on its current success, McCurdie said.
"By not having shareholders, it makes the model incredibly clean because there is no ownership and no equity or no shareholder looking to receive a return from Humanitix,” he told Colorado Inno. “Humanitix can never be sold to another company because there's no equity to sell and so as a result, there's no leakage from booking fees. It becomes a very clean model, where the company is therefore 100% for purpose.”
Since Humanitix opened its Denver headquarters in Galvanize last year, it has since grown from zero Colorado employees to 11 with more on the way.
"We're now putting our foot down on hiring because now the concept has just totally proven itself,” McCurdie said. “It's clear that not just Denver and Colorado-based event hosts are wanting to switch to Humanitix but events around the country are wanting to. ... We're now scaling up very quickly.”
To keep up with demand, the company plans to hire additional staff in Denver. It will bring on new account managers, business developers and engineers. It also plans to hire additional product roles.
Humanitix’s growth comes at a time when consumers have become increasingly wary of big ticketing platforms like Live Nation and Ticketmaster due to their pricy, undisclosed fees and not meeting user demand for presales to concerts like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.
“It’s outrageous,” McCurdie said. “We ask every artist, Taylor Swift, you name it, to reach out to us. We're totally doing it differently; we're a nonprofit. That's the other reason why we believe ticketing should be nonprofit because you create entirely different incentives where you can genuinely be a public good for how ticketing and events and how people gather is managed.”
Humanitix has reached out to large concert venues like Red Rocks and hopes to one day be their preferred ticketing platform. McCurdie said, however, that these partnerships will take time because the venues are in long-term contracts.
For now, Humanitix is busy serving hundreds of event hosts and growing its local team. The company also plans to expand into Canada and the U.K. within the next year and roll out new innovations. It launched a new tap-to-pay offering in mid-June.
