KNOT Technologies, an AI-first ticketing and access control startup, has closed a $1 million pre-seed round led by A15 as it prepares to scale internationally and tackle persistent fraud in live events.
KNOT Technologies, an AI-first ticketing and access control startup, has closed a $1 million pre-seed round led by A15 as it prepares to scale internationally and tackle persistent fraud in live events.
The company is emerging from stealth after piloting its platform with more than 50 enterprise customers across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
KNOT’s founders bring backgrounds at Meta, Goldman Sachs, and Mubadala and say their work began with months of structured interviews with rights holders, venues, and event operators.
Those conversations revealed the same structural problems everywhere: limited visibility into ticket flows, revenue leakage to secondary markets, and unsafe resale channels that leave both organisers and fans exposed.
KNOT layers AI across three core functions: identity authentication, distribution governance, and demand monitoring in real time.
The platform is designed to restrict unauthorised transfers, reduce secondary market leakage, and give organisers clearer control over who holds tickets and how they change hands.
According to co-founder and CEO Ahmed Abdalla, organisers have lost visibility and control for decades, and KNOT aims to reclaim that value while rebuilding trust between event businesses and their audiences.
Co-founder and CTO Hussein ElBendak framed the challenge as an engineering problem that requires resilient systems that learn faster than the fraud they face. He said the company is focused on building infrastructure that adapts to evolving threats rather than relying on one-off fixes.
A15’s investment thesis centers on the fact that ticketing infrastructure remains largely unchanged since the pre-mobile era.
Karim Beshara at A15 described KNOT’s approach as a technical solution to a global operational problem and said the firm is well-positioned to lead a shift toward smarter identity and distribution controls across the sector.
KNOT Technologies will deploy the new capital to accelerate product development, expand internationally, and deepen integrations with partners across the live events ecosystem.
The founders position the company as an infrastructure layer for organisers, venues, and rights holders that want to run ticketing and access with more security and transparency.
The continent’s live events market is growing rapidly, with festivals, sports, and touring acts demanding better tools to monetise audiences.
A platform that can reduce scalping and recover lost revenue would be commercially attractive to promoters and venues. Second, technical success will depend on partnerships with payment processors, identity providers, and local regulators to ensure compliance and consumer protection.
Then identity-based controls always come with trade-offs. Stronger fraud prevention often clashes with user privacy, and how KNOT handles consent, verification, and data governance will determine its widespread acceptance.
Rolling this out across regions will not come easy, as ticket resale habits differ by country, and venue systems are far from uniform. What works in one market may need adjustment in another.
KNOT Technologies will need dependable integrations, local operational support, and clear policies that protect fans while still enforcing ticketing rules in practice.
If the company can deliver privacy-aware identity checks alongside smooth, large-scale integrations, organisers could reclaim revenue and reduce the friction that pushes fans into risky resale channels.
The next 12 to 24 months will show whether AI-driven controls can finally replace the fragmented solutions that have defined ticketing for years.
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