HeadBox Closes £1.4m Oversubscribed Fundraise
- Prepares expansion into major global cities -
LONDON, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HeadBox, the UK's first online marketplace for inspiring meeting, off-site and event spaces has just closed its latest fundraise of £1.4M, having been 40% oversubscribed.
New investors include Sir Brian Williamson CBE, former Chairman of Electra Private Equity and former Chairman of LIFFE and currently Chairman of R.J Fleming; Jeremy Thompson, CEO, Cision (EMEA & India); Matt Isaacs, Founding Partner & Executive Chairman of Essence; Johan Svanstrom, Global President of Hotels.com; and Wild Blue Cohort, a network of private 'angel' investors. They join a strong line up of existing shareholders that includes Ralph Kugler, former Main Board Director of Unilever and Chairman of Cognita Schools; Martin McCourt, former CEO of Dyson; Andy Cosslett, previously CEO of InterContinental Hotels and Operating Partner of Advent Private Equity; Aaron Simpson, Co-Founder & CEO of Quintessentially Group; and Nick Wheeler, CEO of Charles Tyrwhitt Shirts.
HeadBox will use the latest funds to further accelerate its growth in the UK and to prepare its roll-out of the platform into other major cities around the world.
The fundraise follows a strong period of growth for the HeadBox platform since its full launch out of Beta last year. In 2016, HeadBox added Manchester, Birmingham, Bristoland Liverpool to its London base. In the last six months, HeadBox bookings have grown by 400%; its website traffic has trebled and the number of venues has doubled to over 4,000 spaces. The platform now has the largest collection of venues in London and across the UK, unlocking value from under-utilised space as well as providing many space owners with an extra revenue stream.
Companies including Google, BBC, Dentsu Aegis, Diageo, JC Decaux, BBH, L'Oreal and many others are using HeadBox to search, book and pay for creative and inspiring spaces ranging from galleries, cafes, theatres, cinemas, creative and photographic studios to churches, boats and tree houses.
New HeadBox investor, Johan Svanstrom, Global President of Hotels.com comments, "HeadBox offers a fast, simple and innovative solution to an age-old problem of finding and booking unique spaces for work related events. It has the potential to be the leading online marketplace for creative and inspiring event spaces – both in the UK and internationally. I can see the platform has the ability to leverage a number of additional revenue streams to those it is already proving. It has extraordinary commercial potential."
Andrew Needham HeadBox CEO says, "What's really encouraging is that both corporate and SME companies keep coming back to our platform to book their work related events. Whether it is for a planning session, team away day, product launch, client presentation, sales conference, training session, office party or anything in between, they are choosing HeadBox because we are making the whole process so much easier, simpler and faster."
"We aim for HeadBox to be the global go-to platform for bringing people and spaces together all in one place to make brilliant things happen. We want to change the way people think about space, unlocking people's imagination to the different uses and applications of space and what incredible things can be created, made, experienced and achieved within the right space," Needham concludes.
Media Contact:
Andrew Needham
Phone: 020 7993 5353
Email: [email protected]
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SOURCE HeadBox
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