28 Feb Henley Business Angels Members follow-on with investment in Sharesy, a venue-hire platform designed to empower local communities
Sharesy, a venue-hire platform focused on traditionally difficult-to-book venues like school and village halls has received follow-on investment from three Henley Business Angels members, contributing towards an oversubscribed funding round of £745,200, vs the company’s target of £500,000.
It is often the case that booking a community venue comes with difficulties on both the side of the venue and the customer. From an inability to easily view availability, to time-consuming interactions, and inconvenient payment options, the traditional booking processes for community venues limit their profitability potential. Across the UK there are approximately 73,000 schools, places of worship and community centres, with many seeking the revenue regular bookings would bring, but suffering from a limited marketing presence and a lack of commercial experience to utilise the space effectively.
Sharesy helps solve this problem by supporting underfunded venues through new revenue stream generation and collaborating with the venues to create vibrant, profitable community hubs. Sharesy’s platform shows the real-time availability of venues and offers customers a simple, streamlined process for making bookings.
Sharesy’s booking platform comes with several features that venues otherwise wouldn’t have access to. With instant booking and confirmation, customer support, seamless recurring booking management, and secure and flexible payments and invoicing, Sharesy’s solution removes administrative burdens from the venue. With a simple discovery experience within the app, Sharesy improves the revenue generation and booking potential of the community venues.
With Sharesy generating its revenue from commissions on each booking, the hassle-free experience for both the venue and the booker provides significant potential for scalability in the future. Repeat bookings for events such as yoga classes and kids’ activity groups now account for over half of all revenue, and with Sharesy’s inbound venue sign-ups overtaking their outbound sales in November 2023, the demand for the solution is significant. Sharesy is now top ranking on Google for key search terms like “hall hire”, however a large proportion of bookings come through word of mouth, demonstrating strong network effect.
Sharesy hosted over 15,000 events in 2024 and is now onboarding 50-60 new venues each month. Sharesy will be using the money raised during this funding round to further develop its proprietary technology platform, enabling scalability across the UK and internationally.
Felix Atkin, Founder and CEO of Sharesy, was pleased with the follow-on investment from Henley Business Angels, saying “The past year has been an exciting period of growth and evolution for us. We’ve strengthened our business model, enhanced our platform, and refined how we work as a team. It’s been incredible to see growing demand for venue hire support – not just from community spaces, but also from individuals and organisations who now trust Sharesy as their go-to for finding brilliant event venues. We’re thrilled to be investing further in our technology, laying the foundations to deliver an even better experience and take Sharesy to communities across the country.”
Chris Rees, HBA Co-Managing Director, was delighted by the investment, saying, “The follow-on investment by HBA members is a testimony to the progress made by Sharesy and the significant potential for growth. Sharesy is well-placed to expand and deliver success across the UK.”
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