Creator of Fandango Passes Away After Falling from a Skyscraper in Manhattan

J. Michael Cline, a pioneering entrepreneur known for co-founding the ticketing giant Fandango and various startups throughout his extensive career, tragically passed away following a fall from a hotel in Manhattan, as confirmed by New York’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Information to TechCrunch.

Early Tuesday morning in midtown Manhattan, New York Police Department officers were dispatched to the Kimberly Hotel, a towering structure of 30 stories, after receiving emergency calls. Authorities discovered “a male, unconscious and showing signs of having suffered a fall from height,” as stated by the Deputy Commissioner in an emailed communication to TechCrunch. It was reported by The New York Times that Cline had fallen from the hotel’s 20th story. The man was declared deceased by the arriving emergency medical team, and ongoing investigations have since identified him as James Michael Cline, a 64-year-old from Palm Beach, Florida.

Together with Art Levitt, his chief operating officer, Cline established Fandango in 1999, a transformative online ticketing service, as reported on his LinkedIn profile.

Fandango eventually prevailed over MovieTickets.com in the fierce competition of the 2000s to dominate the online movie ticketing industry. Through the innovative approach of selling tickets over the internet, incorporating service fees, and leveraging online advertising for revenue, Cline fundamentally changed the way Americans engaged with movie theaters. This shift eliminated the necessity of standing in long lines at theaters and contributed significantly to the emergence of the $37 billion online ticketing market.

Cline departed from Fandango in 2011, a few years after Comcast acquired the company. General Atlantic and TCV were among the first investors in Fandango.

In addition to Fandango, Cline was at the helm of Accretive as its managing partner, a venture capital firm he founded in the same year as Fandango. His entrepreneurial ventures included R1 RCM, Accumen, Accolade, Everspring, Dresr, and Insureon. Beginning in 2018, he took on the role of executive chairman at Juxtapose, a venture firm concentrating on technology startups, where he found particular interest in investing in healthcare entities, as highlighted on his staff profile. Prominent companies in Juxtapose’s portfolio include Tend, Nectar, and Great Jones.

Requests for comments from Accretive, Juxtapose, and Fandango were not immediately returned to TechCrunch’s inquiries.