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Spotlight, a Web-based ticket management solution, announced Tuesday that it has secured a $2.5 million Series A round of funding, led by Point Judith Capital. Also participating in the round is Brian Bedol, the executive responsible for founding sports television channels Classic Sports Network and College Sports Television (now known as ESPN Classic and CBS College Sports, respectively).

Joining the Spotlight board of directors will be Sean Marsh and David Martirano, both co-founders and general partners at Point Judith Capital.

To avoid any confusion, Spotlight is not in the same space as many of the most commonly talked about ticketing startups--FanSnap, MogoTix, SeatGeek, Ticketfly. Directly competing with the space’s 800-pound gorilla, Ticketmaster, those services are predominantly aimed at getting the cheapest tickets for entertainment events in the hands of consumers.

Spotlight is all about the enterprise.

Partnering with leagues, teams, companies, ticket aggregators like Stubhub and Ticket Liquidator, event providers, and brokers, Spotlight provides a Web-based SaaS that helps customers keep track of their tickets, suites and events. Once a company, for example, adds tickets to the software, Spotlight automatically updates schedules, venue maps, locations and other information for the event.

Spotlight will automatically update any events for the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, NASCAR, PGA, Minor League Baseball, concerts, and theater. In addition to the high-profile events, customers can also add custom events like a company meeting or theme park passes.

Additionally, Spotlight customers receive access to hundreds of company reports, like Used vs. Unused Tickets, monthly inventory statistics and ROI analysis. They even claim to help companies save on taxes.

Over 1000 companies, including NBC Universal and Motorola, and 20 professional sports teams, including the Miami HEAT and Chicago Bears, currently count themselves among Spotlight’s customers.

Each of Spotlight’s three co-founders started their work in online ticketing at StubHub, one of today’s best-known marketplaces for buying and selling tickets for live entertainment events. At StubHub, CEO Joe Greiner and President Tony Knopp jointly managed the corporate sales department and COO Aric Haut served as sales manager.

If anyone knows how much the enterprise needs some ticket management software, some StubHub veterans are probably the right guys.

SOURCE: Vator.tv

Deloitte and the National Venture Capital Association have released a report today indicating that U.S. venture capitalists expect their market to contract but anticipate growth in emerging markets, including China, India and Brazil, over the next five years. The 2010 global venture report surveyed over 500 VCs worldwide.

According to the survey results, more than 90 percent of U.S. survey respondents, as well as VCs in Europe and Canada, expect the number of venture firms to decrease between now and 2015, while a majority of venture capitalists in China, India and Brazil anticipate adding more venture firms in their respective countries during the same time frame.

U.S. VCs have a depressed view of the industry thanks to a weak IPO market and unfavorable tax and regulatory policies. More than half the U.S. respondents also believe that limited partners will be less inclined to invest in U.S. venture capital funds in the next five years.

At the OnDemand conference in Palo Alto, Calif., venture capitalists debate the traits that make profitable SaaS companies and discuss what makes SaaS companies a worthwhile investment.

http://news.zdnet.com/2422-19178_22-416359.html?tag=nl.e539#