A new technology platform, called HeritageXplore, has launched to promote the UK’s historic houses and make them more accessible to a new generation. The platform is the vision of Violet Manners who grew up in Belvoir Castle and is the former founder of marketing agency, Akana Collective, and also founder and executive producer of Duchess the podcast (now known as Hidden Heritage).
The online platform offers a discovery and booking experience and has launched with 25 of the UK’s independently-owned heritage sites including: Belvoir Castle; Glamis Castle; Holkham Hall; Sudeley Castle and Blenheim Palace. Violet identified that the visitor experience for privately owned properties is disaggregated and sought to unify it. As such, HeritageXplore intends to help, creating a one-stop shop where visitors can easily find and book new experiences and enhance their visits through the platform’s pioneering technology. For the houses themselves, as well as the bookings, they will gain customer insights, marketing support and access to partnerships in the UK and beyond.
HeritageXplore has raised a pre-seed round of £400,000 to take the platform to market and is backed by an experienced team of colleagues, advisors and investors. William Wildridge is CTO, having spent nearly a decade on the data science team at Google. The board includes technology industry veteran Simon Guild, advisors include Anya Hindmarch CBE and philanthropist Michael Huffington, while investors include Nick Hanauer (the first non-family investor in Amazon who founded and sold aQuantive to Microsoft for $6.4bn), BetterBrand founder Aimee Yang, NobleGrossart’s chairwoman Flure Grossart, US impact investor Dorie Smith and 5 Hertford Street founder Robin Birley.
The business is also backed by many of the next-generation custodians of independent heritage across the UK – including the Marquess of Blandford at Blenheim Palace, George, Lord Porchester at Highclere Castle, Imogen Hervey Bathurst at Eastnor Castle and Hon. Perry Pearson at Cowdray Estate.
Founder Violet Manners said: "We’re thrilled to be launching HeritageXplore, the first tech platform for independent historic houses to be discovered intuitively, collectively and booked with great ease in one place. There’s a huge and growing consumer appetite, especially among the tech-first generations, to experience these iconic locations but there’s been nowhere that brings them together – until now. We look forward to helping the houses maximise their full potential and using our cutting-edge technology to introduce generations of new visitors to these unique and special places."
Find out more at heritagexplore.com