We’ve all been there: You book the earliest flight to your destination and the latest flight back to make the most of your time away. But the problem with an early check-out often means lugging a suitcase around, especially when staying at a house or apartment instead of a hotel, which isn’t ideal during the last-minute sightseeing, feasting on local cuisine or meetings you’ve planned – and that’s where Stasher comes in.
The idea came when Jacob Wedderburn-Day and Matt Majewski would often stash luggage at friend Anthony Collias’ house during trips to London since he lived so close to King’s Cross station. Collias joked about charging them for the privilege and Stasher, formerly CityStasher, was born. From there the three co-founders started to approach local businesses and hotels to leverage their unused space for storage, thereby acting as a cheaper alternative for travellers than lockers.
A couple of European rivals have since sprung up but Stasher is still the market-leader having been first on the scene, boasting over 300 Stash Points across the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Denmark. It’s a position the business isn’t taking lightly either, with ongoing developments generated from customer feedback including an app to build on the web presence.
Having overcome the challenge of knocking on doors to win clients, a $1.1m seed round secured in January will take the business forward. “Since that injection we’ve managed to grow to a team of 12 and have launched in numerous new cities,” says Wedderburn-Day. “We’ve also been able to inject money into marketing, rebranding and our tech, so that we can make sure we’re targeting customers with a really high quality service.”
As travel habits transform with the advent of Airbnb, Stasher certainly looks to be in a strong position. You only have to read our cover interview with Hostmaker CEO Nakul Sharma for evidence of that. 
