// startup autopsy

Poptix

Last-minute tickets for a world that had no events left to be last-minute about.

market collapseSilent Shutdown

Quiet closure with no public announcement

Founded	2016
Closed	2021
Country	Australia
Sector	Marketplace
Founder	Daniel Thwaites, Mark Greenway

Key Events Timeline

2016

FOUNDING

Daniel Thwaites and Mark Greenway launch Poptix in Sydney for same-day unsold event tickets.

2018

FUNDING

Raises A$4.8M from Artesian Ventures; expands to Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth.

2020-03

REGULATORY ACTION

Australian state governments close all venues; 1,200 venue partners go offline simultaneously.

2021-09

SHUTDOWN

Founders wind down Poptix after 18-month lockdown makes recovery impossible; no acquirer found.

Full Analysis

Analyst plan

Documented cause

Poptix, a Sydney-based last-minute event ticketing platform backed by A$4.8M from Artesian Ventures, built a mobile-first marketplace for same-day and next-day unsold event tickets. The platform had 350,000 act...

ive users and 1,200 venue partners in 2019. Australia's prolonged COVID lockdowns, particularly in New South Wales and Victoria through 2021, destroyed the last-minute ticket market entirely. With ven

Verified lesson

“Last-minute and impulse-purchase businesses need digital content adjacency to bridge physical event shutdowns....”

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HypeCycle · MoatType · ResearchTags

Poptix raised €3.4M and still failed. See the documented cause, verified lesson and all metrics.

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Key Events Timeline

Documented cause

Verified lesson

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