There has been an influx of self storage valet services lately and the market is doing well internationally too. A couple weeks ago, valet self storage startup Spaceship in Singapore had a soft launch and now Kuwait and London are following suit.
BoxIt will serve the Middle East country of Kuwait by providing similar self storage valet services that are already available in the United States. While the American self storage business has been popular for a number of years, the service is now only starting to take off in Kuwait.
In an interview with Wamda, BoxIt’s cofounder Premlal Pk said, “The culture of storage is happening in Kuwait. As more and more Kuwaitis move [out of the family home] to apartments, there are more items to store. These expats can’t own property in the GCC, and they live in shared accommodation… they need storage.”
BoxIt is also looking for additional seed money to the tune of $1.2 million. It plans to use this money to automate the business’ backend, launch a B2B service and expand further to Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Over in London, Boxman has also launched a similar service. After its initial proof-of-concept phase, the company relaunched after it received an additional ₤200,000 in seed funding from CrowdBank.
“Experience with a previous business taught me we could not start with an all-guns-blazing approach, but should build a solid base. We were dealing with people’s belongings after all,” said co-founder and managing director of BoxIt, Paul Stricker. “So we built a basic website and offered a limited service that proved there was demand,” he says.
The business model seems to be working so far as Boxman has experienced a doubling of the demand for the service. The ₤720,000 second year turnover is expected to reach as high as ₤2 million by 2016.
There’s no denying that society on a whole values convenience, which could help to explain the popularity of these services have garnered lately. We predict that in the near future, valet self storage services could outnumber traditional self storage facilities. What do you think?
