A tech start-up dubbed the ‘Skyscanner of venue discovery’ has raised £1 million in funding to drive its expansion.
VenueScanner was founded in January 2016 by Benjy Meyer and Rebecca Kelly, who have more than 18 years of experience in e-commerce and digital marketing respectively at major UK retailers.
The digital platform allows people to find, enquire about and book appropriate venues for any event. It now serves 18,000 venues across the UK and is backed by New Look founder Tom Singh OBE.
The money raised will help the company build tools geared towards the events industry such as dynamic pricing and real-time availability.
It will also enable VenueScanner to start expanding internationally.
“I’m very proud of all the team’s hard work,” said CEO Rebecca Kelly.
“The business we’re driving to venues is growing 30 per cent month-on-month and we’ve stuck to our e-commerce guts and worked tirelessly on user experience, resulting in us improving our conversion rate five-fold.”
Singh added: “We’re excited to continue to back the VenueScanner team. They’ve scaled a unique approach to innovating in the events market, with 18,000 spaces live across 15 UK cities.
“The tech that they are now creating will be groundbreaking for underutilised real estate and their revenue potential. VenueScanner is a true example of an online business, making real world businesses work better.”
The idea for VenueScanner was born after Meyer and Kelly became frustrated by the inefficient and expensive venue booking systems they regularly encountered in London when trying to book office Christmas parties, team away days and workshops.
Co-founder Meyer previously told BusinessCloud about his frustrating experience of struggling to find a suitable venue for a friend’s wake.
VenueScanner now boasts a choice of more venues than any other platform in the UK, which range from universities, museums, school halls, pubs, community buildings, hotels and many more. It has also received enquiries from the likes of Facebook, Sainsbury’s, Uber and Airbnb.