7-Eleven Invests in KeyMe's Continued Expansion

NEW YORK — 7-Eleven Inc. continues its push into offering other services with an investment in KeyMe, a startup with locksmith kiosks in retail locations.

KeyMe, a New York-based company, closed on its $25-million series D financing, bringing the company to more than $100 million funding to date. The infusion of capital allows the company to continue its retail expansion and invest in more marketing, according to KeyMe.

7-Eleven is one of the investors of the Series D. The other investors are Comcast Ventures, Battery Ventures, Benefit Street Partners, Michael Polsky, Questmark Partners, Ravin Gandhi, RiverPark Ventures and White Star Capital.

Founded in 2012, KeyMe has smart kiosks in major retailers that can copy keys in under 30 seconds, as well as a mobile application that enables customers to scan and save a digital copy of their key so that they have access to their keys when and where they need them.

According to the company, the $25-million financing includes 100-percent insider investor participants and will continue KeyMe's expansion into 2018.

KeyMe will close out 2017 with more than five times the number of kiosks in the market than at the beginning of the year.

"KeyMe has disrupted the $7.5-billion-per-year locksmith industry with groundbreaking technology," CEO Greg Marsh said. "This new round of financing will assist us with continuing to meet our increasingly high retailer demand as we are delivering new foot traffic and profitable revenue streams. We will be furthering our growth rate with significant scaling of our marketing activity."

KeyMe kiosks are currently present in more than 1,000 locations within leading retailers, including Albertsons, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Kmart, Kroger, Mall of America, Rite Aid, Safeway, Sears, and 7-Eleven.

In 2016, 7-Eleven expanded its partnership with KeyMe beyond its first two markets, Chicago and New York. 7-Eleven was KeyMe’s first retail partner via a pilot program in 2013.

Irving, Texas-based 7-Eleven operates, franchises and/or licenses more than 63,000 stores in 18 countries, including 10,900 in North America.