SpaceWays, an on-demand storage company based in Germany, launches Wednesday in Chicago and becomes the first company of German startup investor Rocket Internet to expand to the U.S. after its Oct. 2 initial public offering.
The SpaceWays service offers storage of customer belongings packed in plastic bins that the company provides, picks up and keeps in its McKinley Park warehouse.
The service costs $5.90 a month per item or container. Unwieldy items such as skis cost $5.90 to $12 a month to store. Users can set up pickups and deliveries online. The company charges $19 for a retrieval order, but it picks up and delivers at no cost.
The Chicago service comes less than a month after Rocket Internet launched an IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange that valued it at about $8.4 billion.
Rocket Internet, a Berlin-based company launched in 2007, is an incubator and accelerator that specializes in ecommerce, marketplace and financial technology companies. It says it aims to become “the world’s largest Internet platform outside the United States and China.” It boasts more than 20,000 employees across a network of companies that operate in more than 100 countries.
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“The decision to take SpaceWays into the U.S. is based on a particular demand for the services offered by this company in this market,” said Rocket Internet spokesman Andreas Winiarski. “Our primary focus continues to be on the developing world and satisfying basic needs of consumers in fast-growing markets around the world.”
SpaceWays launched operations in London four months ago and expanded to Paris two months later.
Rocket Internet hired SpaceWays’ three founders seven months ago and tasked them with starting a business.
The team landed on storage because they could relate to the space constraints that hamper city dwellers, said co-founder and managing director Rob Rebholz. Plus, they noticed self-storage companies’ huge margins and saw an opportunity to change the model using technology — scheduling the process online rather than driving to and from a storage center.
“It was all about asking ourselves where this business model makes sense,” Rebholz said. “We saw that self-storage is huge in the U.S., and Chicago made a lot of sense … [but] in terms of self-storage supply, it’s actually very limited.”
Rebholz said the business model benefits customers who want to store relatively small items and don’t want the hassle of traveling to and from a self-storage facility and renting an entire room.
Rebholz said SpaceWays’ local warehouse can store about 10,000 boxes. He said the company’s looking for a second location.
By securing a location outside downtown, SpaceWays will save up to 50 percent on real estate costs, Rebholz said.
SpaceWays, which employs 30 worldwide, has three employees in Chicago in operations and marketing roles and is looking for office space that can accommodate a larger team and call center. Rebholz said he will split his time between Berlin, London, Paris and Chicago.
Operations is one of the biggest challenges for the company, which stores items on racks and stays organized with a proprietary warehouse-management system that uses barcode scanning. Rebholz said the company is preparing to integrate radio-frequency identification technology as well.
Rocket Internet also owns beauty subscription service GlossyBox and ingredient delivery service HelloFresh. Both operate in New York and deliver across the continental U.S.