Bounce joins the Lisbon Tech Rise

With the ethos “Don’t plan your day or your life around your things”, the startup was born in San Francisco in 2019 by Founder and CEO, Cody Candee whose vision is to develop the world’s largest tech-enabled two-way market platform for retail chains and travellers to come together.

Bounce is a Silicon Valley company, backed by Andreessen Horowitz that powers an impressive 9,000-location network of local businesses offering luggage storage and package acceptance. Bounce operates worldwide in North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania and in a growing number of cities across Europe.

Bounce’s headquarters are located in Lisbon, where they operate in over 100 locations across the city. Asides from Lisbon, Bounce is also all over Portugal including in Porto, Faro, Albufeira, Portimão, Setubal, Cascais and even Ponta Delgada in the Azores.

Inspiration behind Bounce

Cody told The Portugal News: “I started my career in product management at a big Silicon Valley tech company where I found that I love building products and through that I found myself living in different cities. Every time I moved to a new city, I would get rid of things that I owned and two years later, I had three suitcases worth of possessions, I loved that kind of freedom and flexibility of not planning my day around my things.

“The spark for the idea for Bounce came when I was going to a work happy hour and one of my colleagues said they were going to join but that they didn’t want to have their work bag on them all evening so they were going to go home to then come all the way back. I thought this was a huge opportunity to build a business that would free people from that burden with the vision of having a place to store your things almost anywhere in the city.

“I found that there was a huge market for travellers that are often planning their days around their things, for example, “Oh, my flight isn’t until 5pm so I will just hang out in a coffee shop all day after check out and babysit my bags” and with Bounce people can find a place to store their bags securely anywhere in the city and go about your day.”

“Up and Coming”

When asked why Lisbon was chosen as their global headquarters, Cody said: “We wanted to open up operations to Europe generally and back in 2020, Europe was recovering faster from Covid-19 than the US, so we went forward with our European expansion plan and I asked mentors and friends which city would be best for a European tech hub and so many people recommended Lisbon.”

“They described Lisbon as this super up-and-coming place in itself but also for tech and startups and that there is great talent here. The weather is great and the time zone is better than most of the rest of Europe which is important for California, which is an eight-hour time zone away from here and finally, there were direct flights to San Francisco. However, the number one reason was how it felt up and coming and we felt like we could really ride that wave and be a part of it and even have an important role in Lisbon becoming an emerging tech city.”

Forging a Positive Impact on the Travel Industry

Cody told The Portugal News: “We are passionate about improving the experience for millions of people worldwide, whilst supporting small businesses and enabling them to grow and thrive through our partnerships. Our key criteria for the small businesses are that they have consistent opening hours, that it is a safe and secure space and that they provide a friendly service and have good reviews on their online listing profiles.”

Further adding, “We have hundreds and thousands of customer reviews now and some of my favourite ones are where customers say that because of Bounce they had an extra day of vacation and that it wasn’t a day in transit. That is what is really exciting here, it means more time for tours and other activities that they can book with other travel providers and really make the most out of their time. I think it really benefits the whole travel ecosystem and we want to continue to make a positive impact on Lisbon’s start up world and even encourage others to start their own startup here.”

A Bright Future Ahead

Bounce had exceptional growth in 2022 where they saw their revenue grow 7x compared to the previous year. Cody revealed “We are expanding really fast and we are working hard to make Bounce a company that will be important in the Lisbon tech rise. We are adding tons of new locations all over the world. We want Bounce to be there for you, wherever you travel. We have also expanded more in Asia and we are expanding in our package service. We are also going to be adding a ton more functionality to the app.

If any local businesses are interested in partnering with Bounce, you can get in touch via their website and click ‘Become a Partner’ to sign up.

For more information, please visit https://usebounce.com/ or alternatively, https://usebounce.com/pt. You can also keep up to date with Bounce via Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/bouncemystuff/.

Following undertaking her university degree in English with American Literature in the UK, Cristina da Costa Brookes moved back to Portugal to pursue a career in Journalism, where she has worked at The Portugal News for 3 years. Cristina’s passion lies with Arts & Culture as well as sharing all important community-related news.

Cristina da Costa Brookes