MakeSpace Hires Former Fab.com CFO David Lapter as CFO and SVP of Business Operations

MakeSpace, a New York-based company that’s reinventing the self-storage industry, today announced that former Fab.com CFO, David Lapter, will join the firm as CFO and SVP of Business Operations. Lapter will have responsibility over finance, legal, human resources, compliance, investor relations and business operations at MakeSpace and will play a key role in the company’s expansion efforts.

A 3-time startup CFO, Lapter brings a wealth of management experience and operational expertise to MakeSpace. He joined Fab.com as CFO in 2011, four months after its launch, and grew gross revenues to over $100 million globally. During his tenure, Fab.com completed five acquisitions in the U.S., Europe and India, expanded across Europe, opened its own warehousing facilities, and closed on four rounds of equity funding and debt facilities totaling over $350 million.

“Bringing David on board to help guide our growth is a huge win as we scale locally in New York and accelerate our expansion to new markets,” MakeSpace CEO Sam Rosen said. “I’m ecstatic to welcome David as an integral part of our management team and I look forward to working alongside him to implement our long term strategic vision for the company.”

MakeSpace makes it possible for anyone to quickly and easily store their physical belongings, eliminating the well-known inconveniences associated with traditional self-storage companies. It allows space-starved New Yorkers to schedule pick-ups and drop offs of their items in high-quality bins delivered right to their doorstep with just a few clicks. The company recently secured a Series A funding round of $8 million led by Upfront Ventures, bringing their total funding to $10.1 million.

“The hassle of going to a storage space and sifting through boxes to find your belongings is a major issue for self-storage customers, not to mention the shameful customer service levels that incumbents have grown all too accustomed to providing. MakeSpace replaces that frustrating experience with a consumer-focused approach that simplifies the process and makes it more accessible, affordable and convenient,” Lapter said. “I’ve been impressed by the company’s focus, business model and natural scale advantages over traditional storage companies and I’m excited to work with the company’s proven team of investors, advisors and entrepreneurs to help position us for our next phase of growth.”

With Lapter joining the team, MakeSpace will continue to scale operational capacity in order to meet increasing demand while helping to extend new services to customers such as an iPhone application, scheduled for a summer release date. The company also plans to introduce another major city by the end of 2014.

Prior to Fab.com, Lapter was CFO and EVP of business operations at KickApps, a New York-based social media SaaS provider, and CFO at CTSpace (formerly UK-based BuildOnline), a SaaS provider of document management, collaboration and BPM solutions. During his tenures as CFO, KickApps was acquired by Piksel (formerly KIT digital) and CTSpace was sold to France-based Sword Group.

Who is Behind MakeSpace?
Series A investors include Upfront Ventures’ Mark Suster, who joins the board, Founders Fund (Facebook, Spotify, SpaceX, Lyft), Lowercase Capital (Twitter), OATV (Foursquare), High Peaks Venture Partners, and Collaborative Fund.

In December of 2013, MakeSpace received $2.1M in seed funding led by Upfront Ventures. The company was also backed by notable angel investors: Naval Ravikant, Ricky Van Veen, Gary and AJ Vaynerchuk, Scott Belsky, Josh Spear, and early Facebook employees Dave Morin, Kevin Colleran, Sam Lessin.

About MakeSpace
MakeSpace is a next generation full-service storage company designed to take the pain out of using traditional self-storage units. With reservations available for scheduled drop-off and pick-up times, MakeSpace is taking the “self” out of self-storage, so customers never have to step foot in a storage facility again. For $25/month, MakeSpace lets users store four bins of photo-catalogued items, viewable at any time on their MakeSpace account page. All items are easily retrievable - with the click of a button, a driver will bring the selected boxes in under 48 hours to the user’s address. MakeSpace is headquartered in New York City, and currently serves New York City and surrounding areas.  

Find out more about MakeSpace and get started with 4 boxes for $25/month at www.makespace.com.


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