Eventbrite tops $1.5B in sales, $500M just since June

The company has seen a sharp upturn in growth in the last year

Eventbrite has growing at a breakneck speed, and 2012 was a pretty fast and furious year for the company. The company announced Wednesday that it has topped $1.5 billion in sales—and that a full third of that came within the last nine months. Last June, Eventbrite announced that it had hit $1 billion in sales for the first time since its launch in 2006.

To date, Eventbrite has sold 100 million tickets altogether—half of which were sold just in the last year alone. The platform was used by organizers and attendees in 179 countries over the last year, and it has been localized in 14 countries and seven languages.

“We originally created Eventbrite to support the organizers of small and mid-sized events, who never before had access to technologically-sophisticated planning and event management software,” said co-founder and President Julia Hartz, in a statement. “Now, as our team grows and our product evolves, we can reach these thrilling milestones, while simultaneously serving those organizers and organizers of larger, more complex events. We are so inspired by anyone who brings people together, and we want to make it easier for people to gather around their interests and passions.”

Eventbrite has been on a steady upward trajectory over the last several years, but it seems to have taken a sharp turn upward in the last year. It sold 36 million tickets altogether in 2012 with gross ticket sales reaching $600 million, compared to $360 million in 2011 and $207 million in 2010. In 2011, the company sold 20 million tickets and 11 million in 2010.

The company saw 1.8 million downloads of its apps.

Of the 36 million tickets sold in 2012, 1.2 million were for political events, 412,000 were for beer festivals, and 3,900 were for reunions.

Earlier this month, Eventbrite announced its new partnership with charitable fundraising platform FirstGiving. Now, non-profits can connect their two accounts to see total ticket sales and donation data all in one spot. Additionally, the integration allows non-profits to turn event attendees into fundraisers by setting up their own fundraising pages through FirstGiving. Attendee fundraising pages will automatically sync with the organization’s FirstGiving account so that they can see firsthand exactly how much is being raised.