Speakeasy Announces $8.8MM Raise to Power the Growing IRL Economy & Live Experience Industry

Speakeasy Announces $8.8MM Raise to Power the Growing IRL Economy & Live Experience Industry

PR Newswire

NEW YORK, July 15, 2026

Founded at the University of Chicago, the company has nearly bootstrapped to profitability, delivering 500% year-over-year growth and powering operations for leading live experience enterprises across Nightlife & Bars, Sports & Entertainment, Event Organizers, Experience Creators, Festivals, and Membership Clubs.

NEW YORK, July 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Speakeasy, the all-in-one operations & intelligence platform powering live experiences and the IRL ('in-real-life') economy, announced the completion of an oversubscribed round, bringing the company's funding to $8.8 million. The round was led by Positive Sum, with participation from Yamaha's Music Innovations Fund and other strategic investors, including co-founders and early executives from Seamless, TigerConnect, Genius, D.C. United, Swansea City FC, and Tegus.

Founded in 2023 by Paul Stacek, Tamas An, and Alex Manavi, Speakeasy has bootstrapped to profitability prior to this fundraise, which marks the company's first institutional financing. The company has quietly established itself as the primary operations and data layer for many of the world's most prominent live experience brands and entertainment-hospitality enterprises, including TAO Group Hospitality, Fontainebleau Development, E11EVEN, Barstool, Cipriani, and Breakaway Music Festival.

For decades, the live entertainment-hospitality industry has been forced to rely on fragmented, legacy point solutions, stitching together 5+ separate platforms to power ticket sales, on-scene payments & reservation management, fraud defense, premium experiences, and customer communications. Speakeasy replaces this operational friction by offering enterprise-grade ticketing, a full-suite reservation management system, 3D premium booking flows, on-premise payments, direct POS integrations, and CRM tools under one unified, digital "command center."

"For far too long, live experiences have been powered by technology partners with subpar software, outdated products, and predatory pricing models. We built Speakeasy to change that, collapsing the stack and delivering best-in-class solutions while aligning incentives with our enterprise partners. Our mission is to enable venues & experience organizers to operate more effectively across every revenue center, so that they can focus on what matters most: the guest experience. This fundraise will enable us to double down on a clear mandate to build for the world's leading enterprises in one of today's fastest-growing industries in a post-AI world. The work has just begun." says Alex Manavi, Co-Founder, CEO of Speakeasy.

"When we first met Speakeasy, the metrics and revenue growth were impressive, but the thing that stood out was the team's sheer force of will. They see a problem and run straight at it," said Patrick O'Shaughnessy, CEO and Partner at Positive Sum. "Live events happen outside normal business hours and Speakeasy has built a 24/7 machine to support their clients. Talking to customers we heard the same thing over and over again: they continuously deliver and do it fast." says Patrick O'Shaughnessy, CEO, Partner, Positive Sum

Speakeasy will invest this new capital into further strengthening its best-in-class solutions, expanding into new markets, geographies, and adjacent verticals, accelerating predictive intelligence across the platform, and connecting patrons directly with IRL offerings within Speakeasy's broad enterprise partner base.

About Speakeasy
Speakeasy is the operations and intelligence infrastructure powering live experiences & the IRL economy. The company provides an integrated system for ticketing, payments, premium experiences, reservation management, CRM and direct marketing to venues, event organizers, festivals and hospitality groups, replacing fragmented legacy tools with a unified, data-driven platform. By consolidating and activating guest-level data across the full lifecycle, Speakeasy enables operators to grow new revenue channels, streamline operations, and deliver more personalized experiences. For more information, visit https://spkeasy.com.             

Media & Communications Contact: speakeasy@shadegrouppr.com

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SOURCE Speakeasy