The AI-native operating system rebuilding self-storage - one platform for facilities, online rentals, revenue management, calls and autonomous Voice AI.
CUBBY, INC. / Photographed as the company's five-color unit-grid logo, a nod to the rows of storage doors it now runs software for - from New York City to 450,000 units across North America.
The Dispatch
Self-storage is one of the largest overlooked industries in America - a $50 billion market with more than 52,000 locations, most of it still running on software built for a different decade. Cubby is the New York startup betting that changes now.
Cubby is a software company that builds the operational backbone for self-storage. Instead of the fragmented, legacy tools most facilities have relied on for years, it offers a single AI-native platform that ties together the whole job of running a storage business: managing units and tenants, renting online, setting prices, answering the phone and reporting on performance.
The company was founded in 2022 by Matt Engfer and Adam Fleming and is headquartered at 43 W 24th St in Manhattan. Its pitch is straightforward - the industry was left behind technologically, and an operator today should be able to run a facility with the same modern software a hotel or an e-commerce store takes for granted. "In 2018," Engfer has said, "even renting a unit online was barely a thing."
Built for storage, not adapted to it
What makes Cubby distinct is that it was designed specifically for self-storage rather than retrofitted from a general property-management tool. That focus runs deep: before writing much code, the founders worked directly at facilities - doing overlocks, walkthroughs and maintenance - to understand the operator's day firsthand.
"Cubby is transforming how self-storage operators run their businesses by replacing legacy systems with a modern, intuitive, and highly scalable platform."Kelly Wallace / Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, on joining Cubby's board
Cubby's customers are self-storage operators - the independent and mid-sized owners who make up the long tail of the industry and increasingly compete against large institutional players. More than 400 operators now run on Cubby, managing roughly 450,000 units across more than 2,000 facilities in North America. Named customers include Atomic Storage Group and American Self-Storage.
The problems it solves
Operators face three quiet drains: prices that drift out of sync with the market, leads lost to missed or mishandled phone calls, and staff time consumed by routine tasks. Cubby's answer is to optimize pricing continuously, grade and route calls with AI, and automate the repetitive parts of operations - while keeping the operator's brand and control intact.
Tenants, units, ledgers, move-ins and outs, overlocks and reporting - the day-to-day system of record for a site.
Website integration and a tenant portal for fully digital online rentals, move-ins and payments.
Rate algorithms that use market data to set and continuously adjust prices as conditions change.
Intelligent call handling with AI-powered call grading and routing to lift lead conversion and coach staff.
Autonomous agents that answer inquiries, quote pricing, handle rentals and complete move-ins without a human on the line.
Real-time market analytics and performance metrics across a facility portfolio for data-driven decisions.
Business model
Cubby is a B2B SaaS business. Operators pay recurring subscription fees scaled to facility size and scope, and the return shows up as optimized pricing, higher lead conversion, automated operations and lower labor cost - the efficiency gains that let a small operator run like a large one.
In January 2026, Cubby closed a $63 million Series A led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with participation from existing investors including Third Prime and Bienville. As part of the round, Goldman Sachs investor Kelly Wallace joined Cubby's board. The company said proceeds would go toward recruiting, product and AI development, and customer success - bringing total funding to roughly $64 million.
The self-storage market is large, fragmented and famously durable - typically 30-40% profit margins and often described as recession-resistant. There are more storage locations in the US than McDonald's, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A and Burger King combined. Yet the software layer has been dominated by legacy incumbents, chiefly SiteLink and the broader Storable stack, backed by private-equity owners.
The differentiation
Cubby positions itself as the AI-native, operator-first alternative to that consolidation - a unified platform with open APIs rather than a walled garden, aimed squarely at helping independent operators compete with institutional players. Its stated ambition is to become "the foundational system of record for the next generation of the self-storage industry."
$50B - estimated size of the US self-storage industry.
52,000+ - self-storage locations across the US.
30-40% - typical operating margins for facilities.
Open APIs - integrations with partners like swivl and StorageDefender.
Matt Engfer and Adam Fleming start Cubby in New York City to bring modern software to self-storage.
Revenue management, e-commerce and call handling are added, turning Cubby into a unified operating platform.
Autonomous AI agents begin handling inquiries, rentals and move-ins for operators.
Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives leads the round; Cubby serves 400+ operators and ~450,000 units.
Cubby's origin is unusually literal. Engfer's route into the industry ran through a side business selling art, which sent him to lien auctions in Texas - the sales of abandoned storage units - where he found everything from valuable artwork to, in one unit, a mouse-breeding apparatus. The unpredictability was the point: here was a huge, cash-generating industry that almost no one was building good technology for.
Engfer discovered the sector at self-storage lien auctions in Texas.
The founders personally did overlocks and walkthroughs before building the product.
Self-storage is often called recession-resistant - demand holds through downturns.
Between 15-25% of the US population uses storage, and usage grows generationally.