Urban Storage Startup Boxbee Raises $2.3 Million From Floodgate, Google Ventures, And Others

About a year ago, Boxbee launched to create a new paradigm for how people use storage in urban settings. Today, it’s announcing that it’s raised $2.3 million from investors that include Floodgate Capital, Google Ventures, 500 Startups, Techstars, Jason Calacanis, and Ludlow Ventures, to make its storage service available to more users.

The idea behind Boxbee, which graduated from tech accelerator AngelPad last year, is that it can enable its customers to have easier access to the goods that they put in storage, all while clearing space in their homes.

Rather than pay for a whole storage unit in a dedicated facility, Boxbee users can manage the things they put in storage online. Customers sign up for the service, order boxes from Boxbee, and only pay for the storage they use. Users can also catalogue the items they store in each box, and can have boxes picked up or delivered back to them at anytime.

Users pay between $6.00 and $7.50 for each box, plus fees to have boxes delivered to and from their homes. (Volume discounts are also available.) But the service offers flexibility in the access customers have to things they might not want to keep around their house or apartment. The company also enables customers to share their unused goods with friends, so that they can be utilized more often.

Available in San Francisco and New York, Boxbee has seen interest not just in the consumer storage space, which is a $22 billion market, but in the enterprise realm, as well.

According to Boxbee founder Kristoph Matthews, the company is finding that organizations are offloading some of their sales and marketing materials using the service, rather than having them lie around in an office closet while waiting to be used.

The company also sees an opportunity to partner with rental platforms like Airbnb to enable hosts to keep valuables in storage while making their homes available for rent. And so it hopes to keep its own platform open so it can be used by third parties.