Lugging around bags between destinations can be a pain point for travelers, and Bounce is expanding its global network of on-demand storage with the addition of UPS stores around the U.S.
The San Francisco startup allows users to search for places to stash their belongings for a day in around 1,000 cities on every continent except Antarctica (for ostensibly chilly reasons). Just about any business with extra storage space and reliable hours could become a storage location on the service. It mostly contracts with places like restaurants, cafes, hotels, meditation studios and dry cleaners. Currently there are more than 6,000 storage spots on the platform.
The company announced Tuesday that it is adding UPS stores to its platform in the U.S. — a deal that was supposed to launch last year but got delayed by the pandemic. The company also announced a $2 million seed round led by General Catalyst, bringing its total funding to more than $3 million.
Users pay a flat rate of $5.90, which is adjusted for local currencies in other countries, and Bounce holds insurance for things such as damage and theft. All bags are tagged for security and identification. The company takes 50% to 67% of the revenue generated and shares the rest with the location service providers on its platform.
The startup was founded in 2017 by Cody Candee and launched in 2019. Aleksander Rendtsley was also involved in the early days, according to Crunchbase, though I'm told he is no longer involved. Candee previously worked at Intuit as a product manager for small business software. During his time there, he frequently traveled for work and had to pare down his belongings to just the essentials to relocate every six months.
"I started seeing the world through this lens and saw how common it was for people to plan their days around their things, plan their lives around their things," Candee said. "The big crazy vision is to build cloud storage for the physical world. Imagine you can access your things, you can summon your things to you or away from you as easily as you do with your digital files."
Candee told me they originally envisioned a luggage pick-up service but quickly discovered that people preferred dropping off their own stuff.
In 2021, the company rolled out a new service for package deliveries that it will continue building out. The idea is to let users route online purchases to a Bounce storage spot as a single pickup point instead of having them scattered around at various vendors.
It currently has around a dozen employees and wants to at least double that by the end of 2022. The new funding will also help it expand and build out its products. Candee said he wants to be in 2,000 to 3,000 cities with 7,500 storage locations by the end of next year, as well.
