Oxford University Start-up GroupSpaces.com Secures $1.3 Million Funding

GroupSpaces arose from frustration at the multitude of different websites which clubs and societies at Oxford University were using to organise themselves online. The site has been adopted by most large clubs across the UK's top universities and is currently used to manage over 500,000 group memberships. To date, it has attracted over 100,000 beta testers in the UK student market and 70 blue-chip advertisers.

GroupSpaces aims to meet all the needs of groups such as sports clubs, hobby groups, associations and student societies. This integrated offering makes administration of groups more effective, improves member communications and saves group organisers and officers time compared to more traditional methods.

GroupSpaces differentiates itself by only requiring group leaders to sign up, making it fast to adopt and get started for secretaries, treasurers and other officers of existing real-world groups. Group members can be imported from Excel and then receive emails, register for events and pay their membership dues, all without having to create a user account and password. GroupSpaces is free for groups with less than 250 members and for student groups of any size. Above 250 members, pricing starts at £5/month.

The funding has come from a leading angel investor consortium including Dave McClure, Chris Sacca, Simon Levene, Meagan Marks, Ariel Poler and Quincy Smith of CODE Advisors and from Index Ventures.

In April the company was selected for WebMission as one of 20 promising UK web startups.  Andy and David have also recently appeared in a Spectator article, tipping them to be two rising stars of the business world.