Most hospitality software sits on one side of the counter. Sidedoor sits on both. It runs the member community that decides where to go out, and it runs the platform the venues operate on. Owning both sides is the whole idea: Sidedoor can fill the seats it powers, because demand and supply live in the same place.
For the venue, it replaces five or six disconnected tools with one back office. Reservations, events and ticketing, guest lists, CRM and marketing, loyalty, reviews and gift cards, and live business intelligence all sit together. Payments settle straight through Stripe, and a natural-language assistant, Aimy, runs across the top.
Our role at seed
Seed is where conviction counts most. There's little operating history to underwrite, so we back the team, the product and the size of the prize. Brookland Ventures led Sidedoor's initial seed round with £500,000, funding the next stage of product and the first real push into market.
We try to be useful well beyond the cheque. That means helping shape go-to-market and pricing, opening doors to operators, promoters and payment and POS partners, supporting the first key hires, and getting the metrics and the data room ready for a Series A. We also keep capital back to follow on as the business proves itself.
The opportunity
Hospitality is a huge market that software has been slow to reach, and the move from point solutions to a single operating system is already underway in neighbouring sectors. What makes Sidedoor different is the two-sided model. Own the members and you own demand. Own the platform and you own supply. Put them together and every new venue makes the network more useful to guests, while every new guest makes the platform more valuable to venues.
The economics reinforce it. Settling a venue's takings through Stripe makes Sidedoor part of the transaction rather than just a subscription, so revenue grows as its venues grow. A venue that starts with reservations can add ticketing, CRM and BI over time, which lifts revenue per account with nothing extra spent to win it. A UK base, a broad product and AI built in give Sidedoor a real path to multi-venue and, in time, international growth.
"Own both sides, and you get to fill the seats you power."
Nothing on this page constitutes investment advice or an offer. Information is illustrative and subject to change. Portfolio companies are named with their consent.