ABOUT HIRE SPACE
Built over 13 years. Half people, half technology, by design.
WHAT HIRE SPACE DOES
No one else does this. Other platforms make you wait for the venue to reply or run a formal RFP cycle measured in days. We give you a price you can act on, instantly, backed by a 10-year proprietary venue pricing dataset.
Other platforms search their listed venues. We search everything. New venues, old venues, venues that have never registered with us. Our deep research finds them and creates listings on the fly.
A boardroom for 20 or a programme of 50 events a year, you sign once with us. We contract with every venue and supplier on your behalf. Finance, procurement and AP turn from a friction point into a non-event.
BY THE NUMBERS
Figures consistent with the homepage. Methodology available on request.
WHY WE CAN DO THAT
Pure-AI platforms can’t negotiate, can’t take accountability, can’t read a complex brief. Pure agencies can’t price in 10 seconds, can’t search every venue, can’t give you a single AP relationship across a global programme. We do both, because we always have.
Will Swannell (CEO & co-founder) leads the platform side. Imperial Theoretical Physics, Cambridge MPhil Finance, Stanford ML, two recent AI application-layer patents. We’ve been deploying AI in production for years. It’s a continuation of what we’ve been doing, not a sudden bet.
Edward Poland (co-founder) sits at the centre of the events industry: 13 years inside it, speaking and writing across the sector. Concierge and account leadership come from inside venues and agencies. They stay because they’re trained on the platform, not working around it.
WHERE WE CAME FROM
In 2011 a Teach First maths teacher at a cash-strapped Paddington school met a political adviser working to save recession-hit community venues. They worked from a kitchen for six months without paying themselves, planned the platform during a 27.5-hour world-record football game, and launched as a social enterprise in 2013 with schools, churches and community centres on the books.
We approached this market from outside it. That’s why we ended up building something fundamentally different from the agencies and platforms already there.
ADVISERS & BACKING
Founder of Condeco. Workspace SaaS scaled to 350+ people across 8 offices, exited to Eptura / Thoma Bravo. Knows what it takes to take a category-defining platform from £0 to enterprise scale.
Co-founder of FIRST, one of the UK’s most respected event agencies. Grew it over 23 years before stepping down in 2019. Knows the events business from the inside, at scale.
Karen Hanton MBE (TopTable founder), QVentures, British Business Bank, Barclays, plus a syndicate of angels, VCs and family offices.
Multiple venues and events. One agreement.