In the beginning…
When we started Stora, we had a simple mission: help self storage operators run their businesses online.
I had just signed a 20-year lease and invested close to £100,000 of my own money into a purpose-built indoor facility. The plan was simple: automate everything from online bookings, recurring payments, and app-based access.
What I didn’t expect was that the hardest part wouldn’t be fitting out the building, it would be the software. The systems available felt disconnected, manual, and years behind what I needed.
That’s why we decided to build Stora.
At the beginning, we were focused on making sure that operators didn’t have to juggle spreadsheets, paper contracts, phone calls, and multiple disconnected tools.
Stora was built not just to make my life easier, but to take the self storage industry from laborious, chaotic admin to streamlined, automated operations that could be run online.
Where we are now
Once the day-to-day friction was removed, operators had space to think bigger. Single sites became two, two became five, and five became portfolios.
We started seeing operators who once spent their days chasing payments and facilitating move-ins, to now spending that time evaluating new sites.
As their ambition and businesses grew, so did their expectations of Stora. They needed something to scale with them.
That’s when Stora began to evolve.
We expanded far beyond bookings and payments, investing heavily in the infrastructure scaling operators need. That meant building tools that remove friction, drive revenue performance and connect the entire operation.
Stora now powers more than 1,000 sites worldwide, processing over 100,000 bookings annually and more than £100 million in payments — and growing fast.
Why we had to evolve
In the beginning, we were a fast-moving, focused startup challenging the norm and building momentum alongside our early customers.
But as we evolved, something began to feel misaligned.
Today, Stora powers multi-site self storage businesses—driving revenue, performance, and long-term growth at scale.
Our identity needed to reflect who we are today and where we're headed–so we felt the time was right for a change.
Introducing an updated Stora
This is Stora now.
Stora hasn't changed who it's for. We're still here for ambitious operators at every stage. But we've raised the bar—in our visual identity, how we communicate, and the standards we hold ourselves to.
This is what that looks like. Unmistakably Stora, but at a higher level.
The thinking behind the identity
This rebrand goes deeper than what you see. To explain that properly, I'll hand over to our brilliant Brand Designer, Ciara Smyth, who led the process.
As Ciara put it:
“When we rebranded Stora, we didn’t jump straight into colours or logos. We started with the why.
Stora is about giving operators the confidence to build something bigger. That steady upward movement felt like the heart of the story, and that’s what we wanted the brand to reflect.”
One of the most distinctive elements of the new identity is what we call the building block icon.
Ciara explained the thinking:
“I’m a big believer that the best brand systems do a lot with very little.
The tricky part was figuring out how to show the full picture of Stora, without creating something that felt overly complex.
The building block system felt like the right solution. Structure naturally speaks to infrastructure and streamlined processes, and the idea of stacking creates a sense of momentum and growth.
When the two blocks come together, there’s also this subtle sense of connection, which reflects the relationship Stora has with its operators.”
Colour, typography & motion
The evolution wasn’t just about the icon.
“The shift in colour, typography and motion was about creating something simpler, bolder and more confident. The previous brand served us well, but we wanted the identity to better reflect Stora as an established, innovative software platform that serves as the operating system for modern self storage businesses worldwide.”
Designing for longevity
Perhaps my favourite part of Ciara’s thinking was this:
“Stora is established and scaling, so the brand needed to reflect that assurance.
For us, confidence comes from simplicity and bold, deliberate decisions. Longevity comes from building a structured system that can evolve over time while keeping its core brand attributes.
The result is a brand designed to grow with Stora.”
More than a visual refresh
When I started Stora, I wasn’t thinking about industry positioning or supporting hundreds of multi-site operators. I was just trying to work out whether what we’d built was actually useful to anyone else. Did it solve their problems the way it solved mine?
Over the past 5 years, that focus hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the scale.
Stora now sits at the centre of the operation, bringing processes online and reducing manual work across the business.
We’ve gone from being a software tool helping one operator to becoming an interconnected platform operating more than a quarter of sites in the UK, with more operators joining us internationally each year.
And we’re only just getting started. The next phase is about setting a new benchmark for how self storage businesses operate.
Finally, I want to thank our customers. You challenge us to innovate, to think differently and to solve problems in new and exciting ways. Thank you for your continued support.
