For New Yorkers who live in cramped apartments and are always in a rush, extra closet space is often non-existent, as is a car and time to trek to a storage facility.
MakeSpace, a storage start-up based in New York City, is providing an answer to the problem.
Marketed like a DropBox for physical possessions, MakeSpace picks up storage items from customers and brings them to its facility in Jersey City. The company, which launched in September 2013, catalogues what it stores for each customer online.
To take it a step further, the company will launch a free app in a few months for customers to use to catalogue and manage their stuff. It recently received $8 million from investors, bringing its total funding to $10 million.
“Think of us as a spare closet around the corner in your neighborhood with a best friend with a van to take your stuff back and forth to the storage facility so you never have to visit,” CEO Sam Rosen said.
Prices start at $25 per month, which provides four storage bins, the minimum. Pickup of the bins is free and there is a $29 delivery fee. The service will also pick up larger items that don’t fit in a bin, such as skis or a bicycle, and provides garment boxes for clothes. There is a three- month minimum to use the service.
Customers can leave a detailed list of the items in a bin on a label. MakeSpace also has a photographer in its warehouse who will take a bird’s eye picture of the inside of a bin if a customer chooses, which can be viewed online.
The company provides a $250 insurance policy per bin, up to $2,000 per customer.
The idea, Rosen said, is to make storage as convenient and affordable as possible. The concept is gaining popularity, as MakeSpace now has thousands of customers in New York, and some from as far as Tokyo who are planning moves to the United States.
“With rising real estate prices, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to live in the city,” Rosen said. “What we wanted to do was make it that simple to have that second closet, without having to pay too much money for that new apartment.”
