PeerSpace, a short-term meeting space reservations marketplace, has announced a $5 million Series A round of financing led by Foundation Capital to propel growth. Existing investor Structure Capital also participated in the round.
The startup is a bit like Airbnb but for empty meeting spaces. The idea is to utilize creative spaces in the cities the platform operates instead of the same old conference rooms.
“Our users are telling us they are tired of hosting off-sites at the same uninspired traditional venues over and over again,” co-founder Rony Chammas said. But the startup already has some competition from some other startups taking on the unique meeting spaces rental market.
Montreal-based Breather is another platform renting out creative spaces for events and meetings. Israel-based Splacer is another fast-growing meeting space rental marketplace.
PeerSpace launched out of San Francisco with about $1.5 million in seed funding and another $800,000 in debt financing more than a year ago to develop the platform. Soon companies like LinkedIn, Instacart, General Assembly were booking meeting spaces through the platform. This now puts the total raised from venture capital at $7 million.
PeerSpace did well in the San Francisco and Los Angeles markets, growing 70 percent over the last quarter and nearly 1000 percent year-over-year for the first three quarters of 2014, according to the startup.
Chammas and his co-founder Matt Bendett plan to use the new funds to keep up the momentum, expanding the service New York City – and directly in competition with the aforementioned Splacer and Breather, both of whom operate in NYC.
The eventual plan is to offer the PeerSpace platform in cities throughout the U.S. Chammas told TechCrunch PeerSpace is technically already in Seattle. There aren’t any employees on the ground there, yet, but PeerSpace does have businesses offering rentals there at the moment, according to Chammas.
The startup hired a new COO, Rusty von Waldburg, away from Square to help with the logistics for growth in the coming years. Former CFO of Airbnb Andrew Swain, and Foundation’s Paul Holland were also added to the board.