How This Storage Company Is Capitalizing on Overlooked Urban Spaces
Get to know Katharine Lau, the entrepreneur who saw a business opportunity in basements, garages and other "unleasable" spaces.
Founded in 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stuf added a touch of novelty to the self storage sector. Challenging traditional facilities that have been dominating the market, Co-Founder & CEO Katharine Lau launched a tech-enabled startup and set her eyes on finding urban, underutilized spaces that could be transformed into self storage facilities that are easy to access by users. Stuf’s facilities are typically the result of a partnership with real estate owners looking to monetize hard-to-lease spaces.
In its first year, Stuf raised $1.8 million in seed funding, which was led by venture-capital companies Harlem Capital Partners and Wilshire Lane Partners. In 2023, the startup landed $11 million in Series A funding with Altos Ventures and Allegion Ventures acting as leading investors alongside the existing ones. Most of the financing was put toward branding, technology and several other improvements.
Multi-Housing News asked Lau to talk about how she turned an idea into a successful business, and how she continues to challenge the status quo in the self storage sector.
What made you decide to chart the territory of this particular real estate sector?
Lau: I’ve worked in commercial real estate my entire career across a number of different roles and organizations—investor, developer, operator, tenant and brand. I’ve toured countless buildings and have always been drawn to the quirky or funky spaces that sit perpetually empty or never get leased. While brainstorming business ideas during the pandemic, I initially considered launching a ghost kitchen to help struggling restaurants. However, my spring cleaning effort in 2020 highlighted a gap in the market—I needed safe and easy-to-access storage for my personal belongings, close to home. That’s when the concept for Stuf really began to take shape.
The idea was simple yet powerful: Instead of relying on traditional storage facilities that are typically located on the outskirts of cities, why not tap into the wealth of unused space right in the heart of urban areas? By partnering with landlords who had underutilized spaces, we could provide a modern storage solution that catered to people and businesses closer to where they need it while also elevating the customer experience with technology. It was a natural evolution of what I’d been seeing in the real estate market for years: finding innovative uses for spaces that had been overlooked.
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How has your previous experience in commercial real estate helped you with not only creating this startup, but also scaling it up?
Lau: I joined Industrious, the nation’s largest premium shared workplace provider, as their first real estate hire back in 2016 and drove the company’s rapid expansion for nearly five years. I pioneered an industry-first asset-light business model, grew a 20+ person team, and oversaw the company’s rapid expansion across new products. All of these were formative experiences that inform how I’m building Stuf to be successful and enduring.
Prior to Industrious, I worked at Equinox, L&L Holding Co. and PGIM. Having worn different hats in each role helped me understand how the commercial real estate ecosystem works—who drives what and when. The B2B side of our business involves partnering with real estate owners via revenue-sharing leases, and I can do that effectively because I understand the customer, having been a landlord myself.
In what ways are Stuf Storage facilities different from traditional self storage properties?
Lau: Stuf’s model is quite different from the traditional self storage facility. One of the biggest differences is that instead of operating in a standalone building, Stuf’s locations monetize underutilized or hard-to-lease spaces in commercial and multifamily buildings, creating a win-win for landlords and renters. We convert and repurpose basements, garages, mechanical floors, retail spaces or other areas into modern and tech-enabled self storage for people and businesses nearby. Additionally, we have revenue-sharing agreements with all our landlord partners and handle all the work to build market and operate the business.
Stuf converts and repurposes basements, garages, mechanical floors or other areas of a building into self storage spaces. All images courtesy of Stuf 
Stuf’s locations monetize underutilized or hard-to-lease spaces in commercial and multifamily buildings. 
Stuf provides retail pop-ups and vending machines at select locations with Stuf-branded swag and useful supplies.
Traditional storage facilities are typically located in fringe areas and often carry a negative perception of being dark, unsafe and inconvenient. We’re focused on reimagining the storage experience to make each facility welcoming, safe and easy to use, which is why we offer retail pop-ups and vending machines at select locations with Stuf-branded swag and useful supplies.
More importantly, our proprietary management software allows us to remotely operate our physical network. We’ve integrated with a number of IoT devices and third-party solutions, including CRM, BI/data, access control, payments, insurance, AI camera monitoring, ID verification and tech monitoring, to name a few.
What’s the process behind choosing the location of a new facility?
Lau: We’re fortunate that many new real estate opportunities are now coming to us, whereas it was the other way around when we first started. We have a robust real estate pipeline from new and existing landlord partners, and we’re generally focused on spaces ranging from 3,000 to 20,000 square feet and in seven target markets, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta, Boston and Washington, D.C.
Our entire business is predicated on creating value in underutilized spaces—in other words, turning nothing into something. Many of the spaces we consider don’t show up on rent rolls. Therefore, landlords love that we can generate rent and create new value for their portfolios. At the same time, we are a tenant amenity that actually generates income and doesn’t require landlord oversight or management.
Tell us more about some recent partnerships and deals you closed.
Lau: We recently opened several new locations in New York City and Los Angeles, including a partnership with RXR in Brooklyn at 470 Vanderbilt Ave. We also have multiple projects with Jamestown in Boston, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, and we’ve recently expanded our footprint with The Swig Co. in Los Angeles. Building strong relationships with these groups is crucial for us, and they often lead to future deals once we’ve proven our value.
We also announced a partnership with Lugg, an on-demand moving and delivery company. This has been a tremendous perk for our members, while also introducing Stuf to Lugg’s customer base.
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Are there any new markets that you’re interested in expanding to?
Lau: Right now, we’re focused on expanding within the markets we already operate in. Over time, we plan to expand into more domestic markets and we also have our sights set on international expansion down the road. It’s important for us to build more scale into our physical footprint and remain focused as we fine-tune our global playbook.
So what’s next for your storage company?
Lau: Stuf now has 30 locations and we plan to continue expanding nationally, focusing on larger locations that are more secure and operate with advanced technology such as AI-powered security cameras, sensors and customer service tools. We are constantly brainstorming new ancillary products to add to our current offerings, including insurance, price-lock memberships and storage equipment like racks.
Recently, we’ve dedicated more resources to serving business customers and will be introducing a new offering specifically for business storage renters. As we continue to evolve, we’ll be serving the broader self storage ecosystem with new services, technology and more.
How do you expect the self storage sector overall to perform going forward? Any emerging trends that you noticed?
Lau: The pandemic sparked tremendous growth in the self storage industry, which is often described as resilient or recession-resistant. This has certainly been true from my experience running a national self storage company over the last few years.
Self storage is a sticky product because people and businesses accumulate a lot of stuff and they rarely want to deal with it. Unless that changes, I don’t foresee much volatility in how the sector will perform going forward. Supply growth has slowed over the last two years as higher interest rates have limited new development, which I suspect will result in stronger demand and higher rates over the next 12 to 24 months—especially if the Fed continues to reduce rates. Storage demand typically tracks housing activity, so the industry is optimistic about any positive drivers of housing growth.
Based on the latest SSA self storage conference in September, there don’t seem to be any significant trends poised to drastically alter the industry. However, we’re constantly thinking about innovative ways to define the future of storage and we believe AI will be a critical ingredient. Right now, we’re scaling our physical network rapidly, so our ideas can more easily become mainstream.
