Some of the most resilient startup ideas do not begin with a “vision” or a carefully rehearsed explanation of how something will change the world, but instead with a deeply mundane irritation that simply refuses to be solved by existing solutions, no matter how many apps you download.
In the case of Stasher, that irritation was having nowhere to leave a bag, which is not exactly a problem that screams “venture-scale opportunity” until you realise just how many people, in just how many cities, are dragging suitcases around waiting for check-in.
Founded in the UK and built through COVID without dramatic fundraising announcements or existential Twitter threads, Stasher has grown from roughly 1,000 to more than 8,000 locations across over 1,000 cities and 80 countries, reached profitability in the summer, and delivered 100 per cent year-on-year growth, all while some heavily funded US competitors continue to discover that raising money does not automatically make urban logistics cheaper, simpler, or profitable.
Yes, companies like Bounce, backed by Andreessen Horowitz, have raised far more capital, but Stasher has quietly raised something far rarer: a functioning business.
I spoke with founders Jacob Wedderburn-Day and Anthony Collias to understand how they did it, and why their story is inconvenient for the idea that European founders must either mimic Silicon Valley or sell to it.
From a Student Flat to a Global Platform
Like many good ideas, Stasher began not with ambition but with repeated interruption.
Students kept knocking on a flat near King’s Cross asking if they could leave bags there over the summer, a pattern so obvious that it took two founders not wearing “disruption goggles” to notice it. Collias was living between Euston and King’s Cross after graduating, while Wedderburn-Day was still at UCL, conveniently embedded in an environment where experimenting was encouraged and failure was not yet a personal brand risk.
Both founders had already discovered that corporate graduate schemes were not especially tempting. Wedderburn-Day had worked in government and held an offer from the Bank of England, while Collias had tried investment banking and concluded that long hours, impressive titles, and work that made him feel nothing were not the holy trinity he was looking for.
People were constantly asking to store bags for a few days or weeks while moving out of halls or travelling, which is exactly the kind of demand that feels trivial right up until it keeps happening. The idea went into UCL’s Hatchery incubator, not because it sounded exciting, but because it sounded true.
Refining the Model: Rapidly Abandoning Bad Ideas
The first version of Stasher was, by the founders’ own admission, not great.
Initially framed as something like “Airbnb for storage,” the idea allowed people to store items in private homes for variable lengths of time, which turned out to be an excellent way to introduce friction, pricing confusion, and awkward conversations with strangers, all while charging very little.
They quickly noticed that almost nobody wanted long-term storage. What people actually wanted was left luggage for a few hours or a day, usually between checkout and check-in, ideally somewhere that did not involve a spare room or a family pet.
Once that became obvious, the solution followed naturally. Shops and hotels were already open, already trusted, and already had space. They also liked footfall, which, it turns out, is a persuasive argument.
The business model evolved from “store anything anywhere” to a clean, focused left-luggage service powered by software rather than property, which is generally where margins go to live.
Scaling With Software Instead of Storefronts
Left-luggage services have existed forever, which is precisely why most of them are terrible businesses.
As Collias notes, cities like Barcelona and Madrid are now packed with standalone locker stores, many of which would have been wildly profitable a decade ago and are now quietly discovering that being the 47th identical shop on the same street is not a strategy.
Most of these operators also struggle with digital marketing, because running ads or SEO for one or two locations is rarely worth the effort unless your landlord accepts impressions as rent.
Stasher solved this by centralising the digital infrastructure and spreading demand across thousands of locations, effectively turning luggage storage into on-demand urban logistics. Around 90 per cent of bookings happen on the same day, which makes sense when the problem itself is usually discovered five minutes after checking out.
Users search, book, and pay online, drop their bags, and move on with their lives. No locker codes memorised. No guessing whether the place will be open. Just logistics, executed quietly.
In addition, Stasher offers luggage shipping between destinations, leaning further into the idea that moving physical objects is best solved with coordination and software, not more square footage.
Winning in a Crowded Market Without Lighting Cash on Fire
Wedderburn-Day is refreshingly unsentimental about what matters in a crowded market: product, price, and distribution, preferably all working at the same time.
Product consistency is difficult when partners range from hotels to corner shops, but smart lockers and standardised processes help. Hotels, in particular, are ideal because they already handle guests’ belongings professionally and do not treat a suitcase like a mysterious object.
Pricing is where scale quietly does the heavy lifting. Lockers must maximise revenue per square metre, which pushes prices up. A platform that spreads demand across thousands of partners can charge less and still make money, which customers tend to appreciate.
Distribution comes from search, maps, and partnerships, especially with time-specific services like Airbnb hosts, whose guests almost always need storage and almost never plan ahead.
Data-Driven Expansion and Boringly Good Economics
Stasher now operates in around a thousand towns and cities globally, and while early expansion relied on obvious signals like tourism and search volume, the platform’s own data now makes the decisions.
With thousands of bookings and tens of thousands of searches every day, the team can see exactly where demand exists but supply does not, allowing them to expand based on evidence rather than optimism.
Hosts charge a fixed fee per bag per day, typically split around 50/50, depending on geography and partnership type. The result is a business that has been profitable for several months, with seasonal variation but globally balanced demand, meaning it is always summer somewhere and never entirely winter.
Growth is constrained not by losses, but by how aggressively the team chooses to reinvest, which is a pleasant problem to have.
Flywheel Growth Instead of Ad Dependency
Stasher’s growth does not resemble the familiar pattern of “turn ads on, panic, raise money, repeat.”
Instead, it behaves like a flywheel. More demand attracts more hosts. More hosts increase visibility through Google Maps pins, signage, and reviews. That visibility improves conversion, which improves economics, which allows for more marketing, which creates more demand.
It is not complicated, but it is effective, which is often more impressive.
As Wedderburn-Day points out, the larger the platform becomes, the better it converts, making scale a feature rather than a liability.
From Startup to Scale-Up, Without Losing the Plot
Stasher is now moving from startup to established company, and discussions about funding are no longer about survival, but about how capital could be used sensibly rather than ceremonially.
With less than £5 million raised in total, the founders cold-emailed their way to their first investor, the CEO of Big Yellow Storage, and soon after secured a major partnership with Premier Inn, proving once again that distribution deals beat demo days.
Both founders are candid about Europe’s challenges. Too many founders build to exit, not because they lack ambition, but because the system makes selling early feel rational. Meanwhile, US companies with easier access to capital and higher valuations can simply acquire European talent, as seen repeatedly with firms like Airbnb, rather than competing with it.
Stasher’s story offers a counterexample.
With modest funding, disciplined execution, and an unapologetically boring focus on unit economics, the company has built a profitable global business in a brutally competitive market, not by outspending rivals, but by outthinking them.
It is proof that capital efficiency is not a consolation prize. Sometimes, it is the entire advantage.
