Convene, a hospitality company that designs and manages meeting, event and flexible office spaces, has announced that it has acquired etc.venues, a leader in urban day conferencing with venues in London, Manchester and Birmingham; and in New York City. The acquisition adds 16 new venues to the Convene portfolio.
“The London and New York City markets continue to rebound at a tremendous pace post-COVID with demand for outsourced premium meeting and event solutions accelerating from clients and landlords alike,” said Ryan Simonetti, CEO and co-founder of Convene. He added that the team at etc.venues, led by Alastair Stewart and Nick Hoare, has built an incredible business across the U.K. and New York for over 30 years, and that the acquisition allows Convene to serve clients in more places and exciting new ways.
Convene is a provider of corporate meeting and event spaces, offering everything needed for a turnkey experience from thoughtfully designed spaces to maximize collaboration and productivity to full-service production services, catering and a dedicated A/V team for in-room and hybrid tech support. The addition of etc.venues expands the size of Convene’s portfolio and team across the U.S. and U.K. affording the business to strategically benefit from economies of scale and further operating efficiencies.
“The workplace of the future is a meeting space,” said Simonetti. “While individual work can be done anywhere, Convene provides purpose-built meeting and social event spaces with the tools and amenities aimed at inspiring collaboration that are needed for high-impact, team-based work. We are proud to further this offering with the addition of etc.venues to our global network.”
Founded in 1992, etc.venues is a provider of events, training and conference venues with a 450,000-square-foot real estate portfolio spanning 13 U.K. locations and three New York City outposts. In 2019, the company served over 3,100 clients and more than a million delegates across 19,000 events.
Added Stewart: “As we set our sights on expansion into the U.S., we realized the natural synergy and alignment with Convene and are really looking forward to what’s next as our two world-class firms join forces.”
This acquisition comes on the heels of Convene merging with SaksWorks in 2022, and announcing its new San Francisco location opening later this year. Since its founding in 2009, Convene has served the meetings and events needs of over 4,000 companies around the world. With the addition of etc.venues, Convene now has a network of 38 premium meetings, events and flexible office locations across the U.S. and U.K.
For more information, visit www.convene.com.
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