We’re really pleased to have begun working with the excellent team at Stasher – the sharing economy solution to luggage storage.

Founded by university friends about 18 months ago, the easiest way to think of it is as the Airbnb for bags. These clever young chaps (and believe us, they’re sickeningly young and clever) realised that people don’t want to drag suitcases, backpacks or more around a city in which they may just have a few hours for sightseeing before they have to depart – and who would be willing to pay a nominal fee for the privilege of freedom if it was convenient. They also saw that shop owners, small commercial enterprises and other businesses had both space and an interest in additional revenue. Bring those two things together via an intuitive, simple, mobile-optimised web app and you have Stasher.

Imagine you’ve rented an Airbnb for a weekend away with friends. Your host needs you to exit by 10am on the day of departure, but your flight home isn’t until 10pm. The airport has storage, but it’s out of town, and you don’t trust (or want to pay the extortionate fees for) the storage at the central train or bus station. Bring up Stasher, drop a pin on your location, and – hey presto! – it will show you a range of ‘StashPoints’ nearby where you’ll be able to drop you stuff – fully insured – for just £5 a day, to collect whenever you need to. Leaving you free to explore the city and create memories unencumbered by your cases. Life is so much easier hands free!

In a short 15 months, Team Stasher has signed up more than 600 StashPoints in 70+ cities across four continents, had over 100,000 bags stored, secured partnerships with everyone from Lastminute.com, National Express and The Rolling Stones, and won the inaugural Hotels.com / Expedia Affiliate Network accelerator prize – Hotel Jumpstart. Our job will be to use that platform to raise awareness among potential ‘Stashers’ and grow the host community in the UK and across Europe, and tell the story behind this fantastic business.

These guys are going places, and it’ll be a lot of fun to be working with a company which is creating a new market, learning, growing and listening. And they’re all lovely. And clever. And young, so very young. Did we mention that?

Phil B.