Join the journey of Rebecca Kelly, the visionary founder of VenueScanner, as she revolutionises venue hire and earns her place as a finalist at the Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2023.
Rebecca Kelly is the founder and CEO of VenueScanner, the UK’s largest network of event venues. Described as “the Airbnb of venue hire”, VenueScanner is a venue search and booking platform that helps venue hosts generate more bookings and event organisers and businesses looking to get their teams together, create memorable events at awesome venues.
In 2016, Kelly was inspired to start VenueScanner to solve a big industry challenge. She knew that with the right technology, she could make venue hire more accessible, provide more choice, streamline the booking process and give smaller, independent spaces a platform to better compete.
She wanted to help smaller venue owners access the same customers as big hotel chains with substantial marketing budgets. Kelly also wanted to build a high-performing team and create a place people love to work.
Since founding VenueScanner, Kelly has achieved remarkable success. She has increased her team from 2 to 27 people, raised £3 million in funding, launched in 10 cities across the UK, and increased revenue by 573% year over year. VenueScanner has also signed up over 25,000 venues and over 200 FTSE companies as users, and reached 1.5 million users worldwide.
But Kelly is not stopping there. Over the next 5 years, she plans to drive VenueScanner’s growth by 300% annually, increase revenue to £100 million, sign up 10 million new customers and 100,000 venues, launch in 100 cities globally, triple her team, raise more funding, and build VenueScanner into the world’s biggest online venue booking platform.
Kelly’s vision, passion and perseverance in the face of challenges make her a worthy finalist in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2023, known as “The Grammys of Entrepreneurship”. The awards ceremony will be held in London on November 20th. To learn more about Kelly and VenueScanner.
