Bellhops Diego Meraz and Donald McDowell carry a couch into a Walnut Street apartment in downtown Chattanooga.Chattanooga-based Bellhops has raised $6.1 million from California and New York investors, including those who’ve pushed forward big tech names such as Facebook, Twitter and Paypal.
Also on the list of investors: the rapper Nas.
Bellhops, a 3-year-old business that provides help for people to move, got the lion’s share of funding from a $5.1 million investment by Binary Capital. The San Francisco-based venture capital firm was founded by early investors in Instagram, SnapChat and Twitter, according Cameron Doody, Bellhops’ chairman and co-founder.
“From the very beginning, they just hustled for us,” Doody said. “We could just tell they really wanted us.”
Binary founders Justin Caldbeck and Jonathan Teo recently raised $125 million for their new venture firm, and Bellhops was their first investment, “which was a big honor,” Doody said.