Appear Here is an online marketplace for retail space. Since the company was founded in 2014, it has facilitated the opening of over 10,000 stores in the UK, US, and France.

History

In the summer of 2012, Ross Bailey and a friend decided to create a brand called Rock and Rule to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. They opened a pop up shop on Marshall Street, Soho to launch it. What surprised Bailey was the number of people asking him how he got hold of the shop. It was at this point he realised there was an opportunity to make it easier for people to find and rent short-term retail space. When Rock and Rule closed, Bailey took his share of the profit and put it into launching Appear Here. Currently, Appear Here lists over 10,000 short-term spaces worldwide, with prime retail properties in global cities including,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. Over 200,000 brands have signed up to the platform, including

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

, Supreme,

Nike Nike often refers to: * Nike (mythology), a Greek goddess who personifies victory * Nike, Inc., a major American producer of athletic shoes, apparel, and sports equipment Nike may also refer to: People * Nike (name), a surname and feminine given ...

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...

Chanel Chanel ( , ) is a French high-end luxury fashion house founded in 1910 by Coco Chanel in Paris. Chanel specializes in women's ready-to-wear, luxury goods, and accessories and licenses its name and branding to Luxottica for eyewear. Chanel is ...

and

Tommy Hilfiger Thomas Jacob Hilfiger ( /hɪlˈfɪgər/; born March 24, 1951) is an American fashion designer and the founder of Tommy Hilfiger Corporation. After starting his career by co-founding a chain of jeans/fashion stores called People's Place in upst ...

Expansion

In November 2013, Appear Here closed a £1 million funding round, securing backing from Howzat Partners (backers of

Trivago Trivago N.V., marketed with lowercase styling as trivago, is a German technology company specializing in internet-related services and products in the hotel, lodging and metasearch fields. The company is headquartered in Düsseldorf. The American o ...

), MMC Ventures (backers of AlexandAlexa) and Forward Investment Partners (existing investors and backers of

uSwitch Uswitch Limited is a UK-based price comparison service and switching website founded in 2000. The site allows consumers to compare prices for a range of energy, personal finance, insurance, and communications services. History uSwitch.com wa ...

and

Hailo Hailo was a British technology platform that matched taxi drivers and passengers through its mobile phone application. Founded in London in 2011, the Hailo taxi service was available in 16 cities (as of December 2013). By May 2013, Hailo had ena ...

). Other participants in this round include

Meyer Bergman MARK Capital Management (previously Meyer Bergman) is a privately held real estate investment management firm with more than €7 billion in assets under management. MARK Capital Management was formed in 2004 by its chairman, Ton Meijer, and its ...

, Playfair Capital and Ballpark Ventures, as well as Marc Hazan (of

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

) and Miroma Ventures (investors in

Pinterest Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information (specifically "ideas") on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboard ...

). In November 2014, Appear Here raised a further £5 million from

Balderton Capital Balderton Capital is a venture capital firm based in London, UK, that invests in early-stage, technology and internet startup companies in Europe. It is considered to be among the four-biggest venture capital firms in the English capital. Foun ...

to fund its international expansion. In 2016, Appear Here launched in its first international city, Paris. In April 2017, Appear Here expanded to the US, launching in New York. In May 2017, Appear Here raised $12 million in Series B funding. Leading the round was Octopus Ventures, with participation from Simon Venture Group, and existing investors

, MMC, Meyer Bergman and Playfair Capital.

Partnerships

Transport for London, April 2014

Transport for London appointed Appear Here to introduce pop up shops across its retail estate, including key underground stations such as,

Piccadilly Circus tube station Piccadilly Circus is a London Underground station located directly beneath Piccadilly Circus itself, with entrances at every corner. Located in Travel-card Zone 1, the station is on the Piccadilly line between Green Park and Leicester Squa ...

Baker Street Baker Street is a street in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster in London. It is named after builder William Baker, who laid out the street in the 18th century. The street is most famous for its connection to the fictional detec ...

Old Street Station Old Street is a National Rail and London Underground station at the junction of Old Street and City Road in central London, England. The station is on the Bank and Monument stations, Bank branch of the Northern line between Angel tube station, ...

St Paul's tube station St Paul's is a London Underground station located in the City of London financial district. The station, which takes its name from the nearby St Paul's Cathedral, is on the Central line, between Bank and Chancery Lane stations, and is in far ...

and

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester ...

. As part of this new partnership, Appear Here took an active role in the curation of Old Street Station transforming it into a new retail destination dedicated to

pop-up retail Pop-up retail, also known as pop-up store (pop-up shop in the UK, Australia and Ireland) or flash retailing, is a trend of opening short-term sales spaces that last for days to weeks before closing down, often to catch onto a fad or scheduled e ...

. The station was given a revamp and eight retail spaces within were white-boxed and listed on Appear Here's marketplace. In 2015, Appear Here was awarded Property Week's Placemaking award for Old Street Station

Since launch, over 500 brands have appeared in the station, including Adidas, Calvin Klein, Jamie Oliver and streetwear concept store Ejder which won Best Pop Up Shop at the Mapic Awards 2016. In 2017,

took over the entire station for the launch of

Black Mirror ''Black Mirror'' is a British anthology television series created by Charlie Brooker. Individual episodes explore a diversity of genres, but most are set in near-future dystopias with science fiction technology—a type of speculative fictio ...

Season 4.

Topshop, In-Residence, September 2015

Appear Here partnered with

Topshop TOPSHOP (originally Top Shop) is a British fashion brand for women's clothing, shoes and accessories. It was part of the Arcadia Group, controlled by Sir Philip Green, but went into administration in late 2020 before being purchased by ASOS (r ...

in 2015 to list concession space in their flagship store, 214 Oxford Street. This was the first time that concession space within the store was made available to be booked online. The spaces include market stalls, residence walls, retail and event spaces. Since launch, over 100 brands have appeared in Topshop through Appear Here, including

and independent jewellery brand Littlesmith who went from one Saturday stall in Spitalfields to a permanent residence across Topshop's key stores.

Hammerson, Up Market, May 2017

Hammerson Hammerson plc is a major British property development and investment company. The firm switched to real estate investment trust (REIT) status when they were introduced in the United Kingdom in January 2007. It is listed on the London Stock Excha ...

and Appear Here teamed up to launch Up Market, an initiative to give emerging small businesses and artisan brands the chance to access major malls and prime retail destinations. Curated by Appear Here, Up Market showcases a rotating collection of independent food, fashion and lifestyle brands in bespoke, collapsible market stalls. As part of a three-year agreement, Up Market has already appeared in six of Hammerson's major shopping centres, opening 37 market stalls across Birmingham's Bullring, Brent Cross (London), One New Change (London), Cabot Circus (Bristol) and Victoria Quarter (Leeds).

Simon Property Group, The Edit, November 2017

Simon Property Group Simon Property Group, Inc. is an American real estate investment trust that invests in shopping malls, outlet centers, and community/lifestyle centers. It is the largest owner of shopping malls in the United States and is headquartered in Indian ...

exclusively partnered with Appear Here to create a "new shopping experience" inside one of the country's largest malls – Roosevelt Field.

Unicef Next Generation, Imad's Syrian Kitchen, March 2017

Appear Here partnered with

Unicef UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Devel ...

Next Generation to help Imad Alarnab, a Syrian chef and refugee, launch a restaurant in London.

Bode Pop Up, Art Basel Miami Beach, March 2019

During

Art Basel Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; Hong Kong and from 2022, Paris. Art Basel works in collaboration with the host city's local institutions to help ...

Miami Beach, Appear Here partnered with menswear designer Bode to launch a store at 2621 Northwest Second Avenue. The shop sold pieces from Bode's fall collection and showcased furniture from Green River Project.

References

{{reflist Online marketplaces of the United Kingdom