Howler x Platform45: Prepare for a Global Event Take-Over
Why should events be delivered by slow and complicated software platforms? That’s the question that event technology platform Howler has been answering for the past three years. Today we are proud to announce our partnership with Howler to ensure the meteoric growth of the platform continues, not just in Africa but around the world.
We are one of three companies from which Howler has secured their second round of multi-million-rand investments.
Investment from ourselves, Techstars and Platform Investment Partners Growth (Platform Growth) brings value to Howler from multiple avenues, including our team of expert software engineers, and funding and access to a global network of likeminded entrepreneurs.
“…we are 70 people strong and have managed to develop and own 100% of our entire platform,” says Shai Evian
It was late 2016 when we met with Howler, and what resulted from the meeting and subsequent design sprint, was the proposal to rebuild Howler’s entire software system, removing all third-party IP.
“With Platform Growth’s first investment round and Platform45 as a development partner, we are 70 people strong and have managed to develop and own 100% of our entire platform,” says Shai Evian, co-founder and CEO of Howler.
End-to-End Ownership
That initial build in 2017 would evolve to become an end-to-end events technology platform and the only 360-degree event solution in Africa, making Howler a force to be reckoned with in just over three years. To date Howler has processed over R1,5-billion worth of transactions and 2,5-million tickets across thousands of events. It is Howler’s business model and future-focused technology that attracted Techstars, Platform Growth and our leadership team to invest — and why we’re so excited about its future. Techstars is the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed through a global network of over 10,000 mentors, 49 accelerator programs and over 2,000 portfolio companies.
Howler is the exclusive platform for Comic Con, Rage Festival, and global music festival Ultra.
Taking on the “old guard” of event ticketing, Howler’s event platform is reinventing how an event can be managed and delivered by technology. The platform provides a seamless, cashless and paperless experience for the event goer, connecting the event-vendors to a live sales platform and offering the event-organiser a place to sell, market, and monitor every single aspect of their event, from the sale of tickets, to the organising and marketing of their event, to the cash-out of their customer’s wallets within days.
Today, Howler is the exclusive platform for Comic Con, Rage Festival, and global music festival Ultra. Most recently, 2019 saw the platform roll out into the massive European summer-festival market.
With our involvement, Howler will now be able to scale up and build even more one-of-a-kind features, using even better software.
Platform45 Expertise
Over the past decade, we have built a niche for ourselves deploying and building groundbreaking software products such as Resource Guru and the ZAR X trading exchange; both incredibly intricate platforms that involve complex back-end development, with information that is presented in a beautiful and engaging front-end user interface.
“The amazing thing about software is that it can scale beautifully without increasing overheads, because it’s all in the cloud,” says our Platform45 CEO Shaun Richards.
“Doing more with less, delivering efficiency and using the “invisible hand of tech” to improve every touch-point of the user-journey is what we set out to do every day — and that’s our intention with Howler.”
Shai is equally excited about the collaboration, “We are doubling down on our technology to create a more seamless and connected event experience for all our stakeholders, event organisers and event goers. I don’t believe there is another South African company investing this much into the space like we are. Our confidence is at an all-time high.”
