This startup is the Airbnb of warehouses and has Amazon in its sights

FILE PHOTO: A worker gathers items for delivery from the warehouse floor at Amazon's distribution center in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., on November 22, 2013. REUTERS/Ralph D. Freso/File Photo

A Seattle startup has come out of nowhere to offer online merchants something even Amazon doesn’t: overnight ground delivery to nearly anyone in the country. 

In less than five years, Flexe has created a marketplace of spare storage space in 550 warehouses, quickly establishing better geographic coverage than the vast delivery network that Amazon.com Inc spent decades and billions building. Flexe did it without spending a nickel on facilities and already has 25 million square feet of storage, about 25% of Amazon’s capacity, and expects to add 10 million square feet this year. Merchants book storage space via a simple-to-navigate website; Flexe is essentially the Airbnb of warehousing.