Nigerian startup VenueHero has gone live with its online platform allowing users to book and pay for event venues instantly.
VenueHero allows users to confirm availability of their favourite venues, book them and pay the balance, all one one platform. Users can also discover new venues, with the platform listing over 100 locations for different kinds of events in Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt.
Different kinds of venues are listed, including spaces for weddings, children’s parties, outdoor activities, training, and corporate meetings. The aim of the platform is to ease the process of identifying and booking a venue for an event.
VenueHero uses a computer algorithm to serve prices that are very competitive and cheaper than those that would be obtained for the venue owners directly, with users able to hire venues by the hour or day.
It also includes a feature that allows a user to pay a deposit rather than the full amount. Founder Uche Aniche told Disrupt Africa the startup will expand the platform to other Nigerian cities and increase its inventory to over 1,000 venues by the end of the year.
“So far the competition is a group of listing sites that rely on offline, people-based transactions. We are different in that we are building strategic partnerships with the venue owners,” Aniche said.
“Essentially venue-booking is completely different from hotel-booking in so many ways and we understand the terrain and have built and continue to improve on a technology that will handle the intricacies.”
