“It’s kind of like Uber meets Public Storage.”
That’s how Ari Mir describes “Clutter,” his storage facility business that helps his customers pack, store, and access their stuff whenever they want.
“Clutter is an on-demand self-storage company meaning that they send professional movers to your home, they help you pack the belongings that you want to store, they then transport your belongings to our storage facility and store them for you for as long as you want and whenever you want; you can go to clutter.com and select any one of your items that you want returned to you and within 48 hours, we will have that item returned back to you on your doorstep,” said co-founder Mir.
The reason they can do that is because of their process. When Clutter movers come to a home to pick up belongings, they take a digital photo of everything that a customer plans to store in the Clutter facility. The photos are then stored on the website and linked to the customers storage account.
“So for example, if you store a bicycle with us, we will come to your location, photograph the bicycle and then take it to store it for you,” Mir said. “Then [when you’re ready to use it] you can go on the website and request it be sent to your home.”
There is no limit to the number of items that can be stored for customers since, unlike Public Storage, which has sized individual storage units for customers, Clutter items are stored in a large industrial warehouse outside of Los Angeles County.
Also, unlike a place such as Public Storage, customers are not allowed access to the storage facility for security and safety reasons. All items at the facility are handled by Clutter employees only.
“Public Storage has a facility in Culver City,” Mir said. “You as a consumer can go drive to that facility, you have a key to your locker, you walk in and you have to put your own stuff in that storage unit and you have to optimize it yourself for space and efficiency. We don’t allow consumers to visit the Clutter storage facility for security and safety reasons.”
While there is no limit to the amount of items one can store, there is a limit to how many items can be requested. Mir said that customers can make four free requests for small standard items per month. Anything over that will cost anywhere from $20 per trip to as high as $60 per trip depending on whether a request is made for standard or next-day delivery.
In October, Clutter received $9 million in investment funds from Sequoia Capital, a venture capital firm located in Menlo Park that specializes in funding public and private companies at various stages of their development.
With the infusion of such a large sum of money, Mir says his company plans to continue to grow in the markets they already service in addition to Los Angeles County such as the Bay Area and the New York area.
But they are also looking to expand into new markets and although they haven’t made any firm commitments as of yet, Mir said that both Seattle and Boston are the markets that the company is currently eyeing for expansion.
With the company’s combination of technology and convenience, Clutter is primed to establish itself as a trailblazer in the world of storage.
“You’re saving money by not renting a U-Haul or paying for movers to help you move,” Mir said. “It’s a lot more of a convenient solution.”
