Nas Joins Carmelo Anthony, Peyton Manning; Invests In SeatGeek Ticketing Service

Ticket search engine SeatGeek just announced a $35 million Series B financing round, but the names of recent investors are the real story.

Rapper Nas is part of an investment collective that includes basketball player Carmelo Anthony and football players Peyton and Eli Manning.

So where is the money going? Founder Jake Groetzinger told Forbes that his company will use the extra cash to expand marketing efforts.

"SeatGeek is a technology company, not a ticket company," Groetzinger said. "We spent our first four years focused exclusively on building a great product. A year ago we began to try our hand at marketing, and were blown away by the results. So for us, this is a natural opportunity for us to get more aggressive in marketing."

Forbes points out that some of the investments make a lot of sense on paper. For instance, Anthony's Melo7 technology company has been actively searching for related opportunities. But Nas? That's a surprise.

"I'm excited to be on board with the SeatGeek team," Nas said. "As our world gets more complicated, tools that give consumers simple solutions to make big purchases are going to win in the market, and we believe SeatGeek is that solution for live event ticketing."

The Brooklyn rapper was recently in the news after reflecting on the 1990s deaths of Tupac and Biggie.

"Those two things hit me real hard, because I knew both of them," he told Zane Lowe. "I knew Biggie more, but what they meant to the art form can never be redone, can never be replaced," Nas said. "And when those two guys passed away I thought [it] was the end of rap.

"Today's music industry it's really about money now and back then during that period, when you talk about me battling with Jay, it was about something else. It was not just about being the top guy in rap. It felt like we were leaders of nations. Not that we were egotistical as, 'I'm the leader.' No, not in that sense. I mean what you felt surrounding us was - there was an importance in what we were doing that mattered more than just success."

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