Canadian startup OpenUnit closes $1m seed round for expansion

OpenUnit, a Y Combinator-backed all-in-one commerce platform for self-storage facilities, announced that it has raised a $1 million seed investment round with participation from luminaries in the real estate and technology industries including Garage Capital, Advisors Fund, and Insite Property Group. This funding comes one year after its initial investment from Y Combinator in January 2020.

The seed round also included participation from a number of angel investors including, Chris Killi, Director of Canadian Self Storage Association, self-storage experts including Dave Demchuk, Jeremiah Jacks, and Peter Obradovich, Hubspot executives including Kipp Bodnar, Kieran Flanagan, and James Gilbert, and SquareFoot CEO and co-founder Jonathan Wasserstrum.

Taylor Cooney, Co-founder and CEO, OpenUnit: "Our investors - new and existing - believe in our team and product vision, and, most importantly, the future of OpenUnit. We are delighted to have them on board for the next phase of our journey. This new investment round will fuel our growth as we continue to build an industry-leading software solution for the self-storage industry."

OpenUnit has spent the last year working with a group of self-storage operators to perfect its offering of a vertically integrated software solution to power self-storage facilities. With OpenUnit, self-storage owners can get the tools they need to market and manage the day-to-day operations of their facilities and teams - whether they're a single mom-and-pop site or a multi-facility corporation.

The company also announced the acquisition of Affiga, a San Francisco-based data enrichment startup building personalized data streams to provide customer insights. The acquired company helps OpenUnit customers not only improve their understanding of who rents from them but provides the ability to offer more personalized services and improve the customer experience.

"As self-storage companies move services like rentals, leases, and payments online, it's becoming increasingly difficult for them to 'know' their customers. We see the integration into our product as a way to help self-storage operators bridge the gap between their online and in-store customer experiences, where the personal touch tends to be lost. Already our customers are using this data to personalize their customer journey as well as create new products and increasingly personalized customer experiences," said Cooney." Per OpenUnit, no new people will join the company from the acquisition.

With this funding, the company intends to expand its staff and invest in product development over the next 6 months.

www.openunit.com