Student storage business targets growth after £50k grant award

Student focused storage business Kit Keeper has been awarded £50,000 by InnovateUK to develop an AI platform to optimise order processing.

Kit Keeper is a pioneering by-the-box storage business dedicated to providing convenient, safe and affordable storage and shipping solutions for university students.

Kit Keeper’s 24-year-old founder Michael McCreadie (pictured) launched the business five years ago while studying at York University.

Kit Keeper started by focusing solely on the student market, predicted to be a £300 million per year industry in the next five years.

A picture containing personDescription automatically generated

Michael’s ambition is for Kit Keeper to be the leading student storage company in the country by 2025 and he has already formed partnerships with universities in Nottingham, Leeds, Oxford, Brighton, Huddersfield, and York.

InnovateUK’s young innovators program allowed Michael to grow his team and scale it into a national leader.

Kit Keeper are now using the government grant to develop their backend order processing system to optimise for environmentally friendly couriers, an innovation in the traditionally high-carbon emitting storage industry.

Michael said: “I’m extremely proud of how far we’ve come. I started Kit Keeper by myself at university, we’re now a team of six in the head office and expanding to 10 in May.

“It’s been great watching the company and the people grow. We have an amazing team and with great backers such as InnovateUK and The University of York I’m excited to continue on our expansion journey.

“It’s an incredibly exciting time at Kit Keeper. The award of this grant is enabling us to scale up the business and challenge the market.

“Kit Keeper’s unique environment-first ethos and superior operational technology makes us a novelty in the market and highly desirable to customers over potential competitors.”