This Indian startup will help you save space at home

Indian storage solution provider BoxMySpace, today announced that it bagged US$300,000 from a consortium of investors including Farooq Oomerbhoy, co-founder of early stage fund Orios Venture Partners and Singapore Angel Networks.

BoxMySpace is an on-demand storage provider to declutter home and office space. Users can select the items they want to store and suggest a convenient date and time for pickup. The startup manages packing, moving, and storing. Pictures of all the items which are stored are digitized, indexed, and added to a customer’s online account. Whenever they want something back, they can request to have it delivered doorsteps.

According to the company, the storage facility is guarded and equipped with CCTV cameras, fire and smoke prevention systems, and ventilation equipment. The seven-month-old startup already has a presence in Mumbai, but today’s funding will help it expand its operations to Pune, Bangalore, and Delhi.

The idea struck Pratyush Jalan, a computer science grad, when he was aiming to bring the convenience of cloud storage to the physical goods of a consumer’s home. “Given the vast potential and dearth of storage options especially in Indian cities, we were surprised that such a service was not currently available,” says Jalan.

“Shrinking living spaces and dynamic work patterns have resulted in people adopting a transient way of life, necessitating the need for storage solutions. Once consumers realize storage is no longer a hassle and expensive, BoxMySpace will become their preferred choice,” says Farooq A Oomerbhoy.

The startup provides spaces for larger items through four-by-four foot and six-by-six foot packages. BoxMySpace claims to leverage the unused spaces in large warehouses which makes its service cheap. Its monthly fee starts at US$1.50 per month.

“According to industry reports, on-demand storage industry is gaining strong foothold in US market with estimated revenues of US$24 billion as of date, with one tenth of the people in the US owning a self storage unit. With the growth of urbanization in India, micro-living, space constraints this can become a much needed solution,” Jalan adds.

BoxMySpace’s global comparables include US-based MakeSpace and BoxBee which have received a total of US$10 million and US$7 million in funding respectively. Hong Kong’s BoxFul also closed a US$8 million round.