Press release

Spacebase, der weltweit führende Anbieter von flexiblen Arbeitsräumen, hat in der Schweiz zugekauft: Die Übernahme des in Zürich ansässigen Unternehmens Workspace2go wurde im Oktober 2022 abgeschlossen.

Mit dem Kauf der führenden Schweizer Plattform für Sitzungszimmer, Arbeitsplätze und Seminarräume baut Spacebase seine Marktposition aus und erweitert sein Portfolio. Für Spacebase ist dies der sechste Zukauf seit Gründung im Jahr 2015. Über die finanziellen Bedingungen der Transaktion wurde Stillschweigen vereinbart.

„Unser Ziel ist es, weltweit flexible Workspaces anzubieten, die einfach, schnell und preiswert über unsere Plattform gebucht werden können. Mit der Übernahme von Workspace2go bauen wir unser Angebot in der Schweiz aus und stärken unsere Marktposition, in dem wir unseren Kunden eine noch vielfältigere Auswahl an Räumen anbieten können”, so Julian Jost, CEO von Spacebase und ergänzt: „In einem sich konsolidierenden Markt können nur die Anbieter bestehen, die eine weltweite Abdeckung mit lokaler Präsenz bieten.” Der Schweizer Marktführer (gegründet 2016 von Manuele Fumagalli) bietet Sitzungszimmer, Arbeitsplätze und Seminarräume in Zürich, Basel, Bern, Lugano, Lausanne, Genf und vielen weiteren Schweizer Städten an. Durch die Anbindung an Spacebase können nun auch Unternehmen und ihre Mitarbeitenden aus der Alpenrepublik einfach und schnell über Business-Accounts weltweit Räume stunden- oder tageweise mieten. Mit dieser ersten Übernahme seit Beginn der Pandemie behauptet Spacebase seine starke Position gegenüber seinen Wettbewerbern. Mit Workspace2go ergänzt das in Berlin ansässige Unternehmen sein Marken-Portfolio rund um eventsofa, Deskbookers, Craftspace, Okanda und MICE-Agency.

Raumlösungen für hybride Arbeitsmodelle

Das 2015 in Berlin gegründete Unternehmen Spacebase begleitet Unternehmen bei der Umsetzung attraktiver Arbeitsplatzkonzepte im Rahmen des New-Work-Konzepts. Mit der Übernahme von Workspace2go steht ein breiteres Angebot an Miet-Locations zum Arbeiten sowie für Workshops, Meetings und Business-Events in der Schweiz zur Verfügung, die über die E-Commerce- und Sharing Economy-Plattform gebucht werden können. Firmen können über die Business-Accounts ein Full-Service-Paket erhalten. Von der Raumsuche, über die Budgetplanung und Abrechnung bis hin zur Transaktionsabwicklung für alle gebuchten Standorte läuft alles über einen Anbieter. So können Unternehmen eine Vorauswahl geeigneter Arbeitsräume nach firmeninternen Standards treffen und das Budget festlegen, während die Mitarbeitenden selbstständig innerhalb der festgelegten Rahmenbedingungen ihre Arbeitsräume buchen können. Der Workspace-Anbieter erleichtert damit den gesamten administrativen und strategischen Arbeitsprozess für Unternehmen. Folglich sparen diese Kapazitäten und Zeit und ermöglichen ihren Mitarbeitenden, flexibel von einem Büro aus zu arbeiten, das praktisch und nahe des Wohnortes gelegen ist. Bis Mitte 2022 haben allein Berliner Nutzer:innen bereits mehr als 100.000 Buchungen getätigt.

Founded in 2014, Okanda has a portfolio of over 1600 locations, including major hotel chains like Radisson, Hilton, Sheraton and Hyatt. Okanda’s online reservation system simplifies the process of viewing and booking spaces for users, and allows venues to boost occupancy rates. Its revenue model is a mix of commission and subscription.

“Okanda quickly took the lead of the market for hotel meeting rooms with instant booking, which allowed it to achieve rapid growth” says Spacebase CEO Julian Jost. “Over the last two years, the technological and commercial restructuring undertaken by Ingmar Bornholz have made Okanda into an even more successful business. We’re excited to keep building on this as we bring Okanda into the Spacebase family.”

“With Spacebase we have found the ideal home for Okanda - we share the same drive, values and potential to further revolutionise the events and meetings market,” said Ingmar Bornholz, investor and interim CEO of Okanda. “I am pleased and grateful that Okanda’s success story will continue - I wish our team and the Spacebase team every success.”

The move marks the next step in Spacebase’s second acquisition series. In April this year, Spacebase purchased event location specialist, eventsofa. Spacebase now owns and operates four distinct brands, covering all segments in the market for small- and large-scale meeting and event spaces: Spacebase, Craftspace, eventsofa and Okanda.

“The Okanda acquisition helps us to achieve full B2B market coverage,” said Jost. “We’re excited to be the number one corporate meeting marketplace in Germany and the only one to offer instant booking functionality across our platform.”

The Okanda acquisition is expected to make Spacebase even more competitive and better positioned for long-term growth.

“With the successful purchase of Okanda, Spacebase has further rounded off its offerings in the meetings and events industry,” said Peter Blach, director of AktivMedia GmbH and editor of various MICE publications, including the BlachReport. “Users as well as providers of event spaces stand to benefit, as online booking productively brings together offerings and demand. These four Spacebase platforms bring clarity to the ‘jungle’ of locations out there, and help organisers make a success of their experience marketing events.”

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Spacebase, the worldwide sharing-economy platform for extraordinary workshop and meeting spaces acquires eventsofa, the successful and profitable online marketplace for event locations. As a result of this acquisition, Spacebase expands its portfolio to include larger event locations, and will double its portfolio to over 8,000 spaces, with many available exclusively on the platform. Having already counted 29 of the DAX 30 companies as its customers in Germany, this acquisition affirms Spacebase's market leading position as the principal solution for B2B location bookings. The take-over of eventsofa comes as part of Spacebase's expansion strategy to enter new neighbouring segments and reach further destinations previously untouched.

At the close of 2018, Spacebase was recognised as one of the fastest growing companies in Germany. 'With this acquisition of eventsofa, Spacebase continues on a path of strong, highly profitable growth,' states Julian Jost, CEO of Spacebase. 'The purchase of eventsofa raises our market share of relevant locations from 30-40% to over 70%.'

eventsofa, founded in 2012 by Stefanie Jarantowski has since evolved from a location listing platform to a marketplace for unique event locations and event experiences. By acquiring eventsofa, Spacebase extends its successful transaction model to larger event locations. eventsofa location providers will now have access to Spacebase's SaaS technology that simplifies the distribution of locations to corporate clients through digital processes. Spacebase already fully automates over 80% of requests on the platform, and with their advanced technology, aims to have an exclusive hold over the events and conferences market.

'I am incredibly proud of this successful exit after seven years of continued growth,' announced Stefanie Jarantowski, founder of eventsofa. 'Our extensive event location portfolio and event experience expertise will provide Spacebase a tremendous boost in growth. At the same time, our event locations on eventsofa will benefit from Spacebase's existing exclusive corporate integrations, and provide our locations new access to major key accounts. I am delighted that I'll continue to contribute to Spacebase's success story into the future.'

'We have continually optimised our playbook in recent years, and our upcoming portfolio expansions are an important part of our rollout strategy, both in terms of related market segments and new destinations.' concludes Julian Jost. 'We look forward to further accelerating expansion through this acquisition.'

This is the second acquisition for Spacebase, after purchasing Craftspace in 2017, and signals increased consolidation amongst B2B location portals. The acquisition is a partial share swap with eventsofa receiving a stake in Spacebase. The purchase price remains confidential.

"For our clients Spacebase is becoming more and more of a starting point for anything related to meetings and especially company events. In order to continuously offer added value to our customers it is inevitable that we constantly develop our portfolio" says Julian Jost, CEO of Spacebase. "The Craftspace portfolio is unique in Germany and we are happy to have this upcoming brand on board with us. Thanks to this great addition to our portfolio we set ourselves apart from boring, colorless booking platforms even more so."

The Hamburg based company Craftspace established itself with its launch in spring 2016 as the online booking platform for gastronomical, craft and creative rooms and adds more than 400 extraordinary venues in Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen to the Spacebase portfolio. "We are happy that Craftspace can continue its development in the Spacebase family. Spacebase offers the superior technology, that our space providers and the clients will profit from equally. It was never easier to start a project and dive into a creative environment", says Christoph Lange, co-founder of Craftspace.

With the take-over Spacebase not only increases the customer base, but also the reach of the brand Craftspace: Up until now the young company Craftspace was only available in Hamburg, Berlin and Bremen, whereas Spacebase is available in more than 12 countries worldwide.

By joining the two platforms, Spacebase is promoting the tendency for online bookings in the meeting industry. "For the upcoming years we expect a significant increase in revenues from online booking in the industry. Numbers from the USA show a trend that hints to an increase from < 2 % to at least ten times that amount", says Jost.

With the take-over Spacebase initiates the expected consolidation of b2b room booking platforms. The merger with Craftspace is the first step of Spacebase's growth plans: Over the course of the next year the portfolio of over 2,500 Spacebase profiles is expected to at least double. "Our long-term plans are to offer a full-service platform. Besides a broad variety of locations the website will feature a range of services that support the clients in every step from the initial search for inspiration to the final accounting processes", says Jost. Focussing on a niche - be it unique meeting rooms or only the booking process - does not suffice, according to Jost.

After establishing their position as one of Europe's biggest online meeting room booking platforms, Spacebase has announced their upcoming launch on the New York City market. The Berlin-based start-up will make over 200 unique meeting and workshop spaces available for booking on their website November 1st, with the number of spaces increasing weekly. Their arrival to the American market was driven by their rapid growth across Europe as well as high client demand. Spacebase (www.spacebase.com) is a transparent and easy-to-use booking platform for refreshing and different meeting rooms as well as unique workshop, studio and event spaces. The German start-up's portfolio has about 2.000 locations for companies to choose from in more than 30 cities across 12 countries. Their client database has shown demand for locations in New York City which prompted Spacebase to launch their user-friendly platform in the United States.

"New York is a huge hub for international businesspeople, which is exactly our clientele," said co-founder and CMO Jan Hoffmann-Keining. "Originally, the launch in New York was to accommodate the demand of our clients, but now we are seeing that NYC has become our fastest-growing market, thanks to the high speed growth of the sharing economy and the demand for flexibility." The sharing economy phenomenon has resolved problems across several industries, such as the high costs and long-term contracts in the car rental industry. As the trend grows, it will continue to make industries more flexible and accessible, especially in the meeting and event planning industry. In the United States, there are over 11 million meetings per day, yet over 33% of them (roughly 3.6 million of them) are considered boring or unproductive. Stagnant routines and non-creative atmospheres are two major culprits behind unsuccessful meetings. A staggering 12.3 million business travelers came to New York City last year alone and this number paired with the lack of effective meeting spaces reveals a huge market potential for supplying interesting meeting venues to the greater New York area.

"We've been watching the MICE industry grow rapidly and intertwine with the sharing economy trend," said co-founder and CEO of Spacebase, Julian Jost. "We are really excited to launch in New York and offer unique, undiscovered meetings spaces to a ready-to-book market."

While the B2C market for accommodation has already been established by proponents of the 'sharing economy' like AirBnB, the same cannot be said for the meeting industry. Until now, finding unique and unusual workshop spaces was a time-consuming and costly task, but Spacebase (www.spacebase.com) is now positioning itself as the first online booking solution for these locations around the world. After a successful start collecting more than 1000 spaces in 14 cities and winning Web in Travel's Start-Up of the Year and Eye for Travel's Best Travel Start-Up awards, Spacebase Co-founder Stephan Ekbergh is now further supporting the company with a high six-figure seed funding amount.

'Spacebase occupies a little-utilized portion of the market which has promising potential. The global approach of the business model, as well as the highly-motivated team of with their vision to inject more creativity into the meetings industry, has impressed me from the beginning,' says the co-founder. Ekbergh himself is an experienced entrepreneur and CEO/Founder of the successful online travel agent Travelstart. 'After a successful launch period, I have decided to make seed funding available for further expansion of the service. In addition to financial support, I will offer my experience in the travel industry to be of strategic and consultative assistance to the team,' adds Ekbergh.

Other founders behind the Spacebase concept are Julian Jost and Jan Hoffmann-Keining, who themselves know from their time organising workshops as former-consultants the positive impact which creative approaches can have in the tedious meetings industry. With Spacebase, they aim to break this deadlock, by offering stimulating new environments as well as simplifying the process of booking such events. 'We are pleased that the Spacebase concept has been so well-received in the industry', says founder Julian Jost. 'With this seed funding, we can expand our platform and services for both customers and venue owners. At the same time we can grow the portfolio of venues in our already active countries and internationally promote the platform to new markets'.

Spacebase has been named Best Travel Start-Up at the EyeforTravel Start-Up Village 2015. The online booking platform for event locations and meeting spaces won the award as part of the Mobile & Innovation Strategies for Travel conference in San Francisco.

The conference brought together influential players and budding entrepreneurs to establish a discourse about the changing landscape of consumer behaviour and new technologies in travel. Held in the heart of San Francisco, The Start-Up Village featured a morning of creative seminars followed by an awards competition where 12 travel start-ups pitched to an experienced judging panel of investors and travel experts.

As a first-time participant, Julian Jost (founder of www.spacebase.com) presented the Spacebase concept to win judges over and claim the prize comprising a host of networking, sponsorship and development opportunities. The award comes just 3 weeks after Jost spoke as a 'Travel Disruptor' at the Phocuswright panel at ITB, the world's leading travel trade show, and just 7 months after Spacebase received the Web In Travel 2014 Start Up Of The Year award in Singapore.

Although still in its infancy, it is clear that the Spacebase ball has begun to roll and is set to make a splash in the stagnant waters of the conservative meetings industry.

Today the world's leading travel trade show ITB is opening its gates in Berlin to exhibitors from 180 countries and regions which will be visited by over 110,000 people from the commercial and travel industries. One of the most innovative forums of the fair is the Phocuswright@ITB Disruption's Curve, taking place on March 4th and bringing together international executives from the travel, tourism and hospitality sector to discuss, debate and define the latest industry trends.

As a first time participant Julian Jost, CEO and founder of the Berlin-based booking platform Spacebase (www.spacebase.com), will take part in the panel 'Executive Roundtable: The Disruptors' (13:15 - 13:45). Together with Rod Cuthbert, CEO of Rome2rio, Will Phillipson, President of SilverRail Technologies, and Polina Raygorodskaya, CEO of Wanderu Inc., he will be discussing disruptive forces in the travel world as well as new players and innovations that are looking to shake-up the industry. Attendees are also welcome to take part in the discussion.