Convene, designer and manager of meeting, event and flexible office spaces, has acquired etc.venues, a provider of urban day conferencing with venues across the United Kingdom in London, Manchester and Birmingham, and in the United States in New York City. The acquisition adds 16 new venues to the Convene portfolio, making it the largest single provider of dedicated premium meeting and event venues in the U.S. and UK.
“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. “The talented team at etc.venues, led by Alastair Stewart and Nick Hoare, managing director, has built an incredible business across the UK and New York for over 30 years; the acquisition of an organization with such an unwavering commitment to delivering high-quality meeting and event experiences allows Convene to expand our ability to serve our clients in more places and exciting new ways.”
The addition of etc.venues quickly expands the size of Convene’s portfolio and team across the U.S. and UK affording the business to strategically benefit from economies of scale and further operating efficiencies.
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 one million delegates across 19,000 events.
“etc.venues is the largest urban day-conference venue provider in the UK with an incredible client base comprising a number of Fortune 500 companies,” said Alastair Stewart of etc.venues. “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.”
