Storefront, the startup that provides a marketplace for short term real-estate rentals, is expanding into four new U.S. metropolitan areas.
The company, which is currently operating in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, will add Atlanta, Boston, Miami and Washington DC to its roster.
The company says it now has access to over 10 million square feet of potential short term commercial real estate rentals — as much as every Gap store in the U.S.
Spaces range from the mundane (a small bit of square footage in a coffee shop or small retailer) to the magnificent (Wrigley Field, Chelsea Piers, art galleries) but the sweet spot for the company is an under-used 1,000 to 2,000 square foot bit of real estate in a high-trafficked metropolitan area, according to chief executive Erik Eliason.
The service has already supplied real estate for brands from Casper to Kanye and has about 30,000 companies that have registered since its launch in 2012.
Over the past two years, Eliason says the company has opened roughly 3,000 storefront locations.
Storefront generates cash by taking a 3% cut from renters and a 6% cut from suppliers of real-estate for each successful transaction.
Typically a Storefront customer tends to be a start-up brand or young company looking to get a quick brick-and-mortar fix so customers in key cities can get a taste of the products the brands are hawking.
The company has raised $8.9 million from a slew of early stage investors including the Box Group, 500 Startups, and Spark Capital.