July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Twenty-four hours after Google released three location tools for its app developers, startups are already integrating the APIs into their products.

The founders of Valet stayed up all night to get the new API into their app as quickly as possible. Valet launched in April in the Google Play store to help people remember where they parked. It tags your parking location with a pin and reminds you when to pay the parking meter. You can set a timer for your meter and share the location on social media. There is, of course, no guaranteeing you will avoid fines, but it does cut down on the “human error” often responsible for the tickets.

Founder Will Roman recently relocated to San Francisco from Austin, Texas, to work at another startup. After “losing” his car a few times in the unfamiliar city and getting slapped with multiple parking fines, he recruited cofounder Josh Deffibaug, and the two set out to build Valet.

The app received mention on Gizmodo and a couple of Android blogs for its “simplicity and beauty” and was attracting a good number of users through word-of-mouth. But when Roman and Deffibaugh heard the news about Google’s new location APIs, they saw an exciting opportunity.

“Everyone who drives can appreciate this,” Roman said in an interview. “Parking tickets suck, and so does forgetting where you parked on a busy day, when visiting a new city, or after a night of drinking. With integration of the new Google Play Services location API’s, all features can be automated on over 95 percent of Android devices thereby preventing you from ever loosing your vehicle or getting a parking ticket again. We’re the only parking app in the world to integrate the Google Play Services location API’s.”

The location application programming interfaces (API) are part of Google Play Services, a tool kit for Android developers. Integrating location-sensing features to your app can be challenging and Google’s fused location provider “intelligently manages the underlying location technology” to make building location-aware app easier and less energy-intensive.  The technology combines GPS with on-phone sensors like the gyroscope, accelerometer, and barometer to collect your movement data and deliver a more accurate, immediate, and power-efficient application.

Using “Activity Recognition,” your phone can figure out whether you are walking, cycling, or driving which has clear applications for fitness apps. The Valet founders realized that the same technology could be used to tell when a car goes from driving to park mode, and can automatically drop a pin in your parking spot without you having to push a button.

“The new location APIs are more accurate, simpler to integrate, and back ported,” Roman said. “They solve a lot of the fragmentation issues of Android and enabled us to cater to the broadest market possible with even better reliability than previously possible.”

Competitors include iCarPark, Car Finder AR, Find My Car Smarter, Car Locator, Where Did I Park. Valet is based in San Francisco, where parking does in fact suck.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

 Streetline has raised $25 million in financing for its smart-parking service.

Streetline’s system combines mobile technology with the “Internet of things” to streamline the process of finding a parking spot. It works with cities, garages, airports, universities, and other private parking providers to place ultralow power wireless sensors in parking spaces. This creates a system, updated in real time, of available places to park. This data is connected to the mobile apps, which drivers can use to navigate to an open spot. Streetline is in 30 locations in the U.S. and Europe and contains garage data for over 23,000 locations.

The “Internet of things” and connected cars are a hot space right now. A fleet of companies are attempting to solve the frustration that is urban parking. ParkWhiz, ParkingPanda, SpotHero, KurbKarma, and ParqPlace have all raised capital, but this is the largest round of funding this deal reporter has seen from a parking startup.

This third round of investment, led by True Ventures, also included new investors Citi and Qualcomm Ventures. Sutter Hill Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners, and Fontinalis Partners made follow-on investments. This brings Streetline’s total capital raised to over $40 million, not including a $25 million credit facility taken from Citi last year.

Streetline is based in Foster City, Calif. Read the press release. 

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Finding a parking spot is a challenge in urban locations. I have opted to trek across town in the dead of night, shell out for a cab, or brave public transportation to avoid the frustration that is searching for a place to park.

ParkWhiz tackles this problem by allowing drivers to find and reserve parking spots in advance. This Chicago-based startup has raised $2 million in its first round of institutional funding from Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels, Amicus Capital and big name angel investors Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan. This investment will be used to expand its presence into more locations across the nation.

ParkWhiz was founded in 2006 and there are over 3 million parking spaces in its database. It is active in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Baltimore, and New Orleans, as well as over 100 airports and popular sporting destinations such Boston’s Fenway Park and the Dallas Cowboys Stadium. The company has intelligently struck strategic partnerships with sports teams and venues, as well as ticket providers like StubHub, to offer parking inventory.

“Transportation disruption is a huge trend right now,” said cofoudner and CEO Aashish Dalal in an interview with VentureBeat. “There are a variety of companies shaking up hailing taxis, finding overnight accommodations, sharing cars, booking private jets, and even bicycle ownership. ParkWhiz enables an existing consumer behavior within what is traditionally a very offline consumer experience. By aggregating real-time data about parking availability and pricing, we have pioneered a new way for parking owners and consumers to find each other.”

Not only can users see what spots are available and claim them in advance, but they can also compare price, location, and amenities. Once the transaction is complete, drivers receive a ParkWhiz digital parking pass and directions to their spot. It is prepaid, which eliminates concerns about losing pay stubs or not having the right amount of cash.

Last week, another Chicago-based startup SpotHero announced a $2.5 million round led by Battery Ventures. SpotHero was accelerated in Excelerate Labs and focuses on the pain point of finding parking on the go. Its mobile app shows available spaces in parking garages nearby and is mainly active in Chicago. Other competitors include KurbKarma, which adds a social network layer atop the parking search capability, and ParqPlace, a startup incubated by Lemons Labs that takes more of a shared economy approach by combining mobile technology and hardware to capitalize on spaces owned by schools, churches, businesses, and residents.

At one time or another, these startups have been referred to as the “OpenTable” “Uber” or “AirBnB” of parking. Rather than drawing comparisons, lets revert to the simple fact that parking can be stressful and most people welcome technology that eliminates unnecessary stress from their lives, particularly when it means the fun can start sooner.

One year after graduating from the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator’s first class of startups in NYC, the online parking marketplace Parking Panda is launching an iPhone application and expanding its coverage to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Parking Panda was particularly interesting at launch because it offered home owners a way to rent their unused parking spaces, something that could be particularly profitable during major sporting events. But over the past year, the company has learned that striking deals with large parking garages is an easier way to expand its service.

“It’s easier to work with garages because they can now sort of apply ‘big data’ analytics to parking,” said Nick Miller, Parking Panda’s cofounder and CEO, in an interview with VentureBeat. He added that the company is doing a lot on the backend to help garages optimize their yield and pricing.

Parking Panda’s free new iPhone app lets you find and reserve parking spots on the service. It’s an upgrade from Parking Panda’s mobile website, which users on other mobile platforms can still take advantage of.

Miller and the rest of his team have learned a lot about parking spaces since founding the company. “We found that while the peer-to-peer model was incredibly effective for this space, the parking industry itself was really sort of old school … but it’s on the precipice of technology revolution,” he said. “Now we’re seeing lots of innovations in the parking space.”

Around 85 percent of Parking Panda’s volume comes from commercial parking garages, while 15 percent comes from private homeowners. Miller said the company is still seeing “solid growth” on the private end, and the company isn’t thinking of moving away from that offering anytime soon. Miller himself has taken advantage of private parking spaces recently, and he says that homeowners can easily make between $300 to $400 a month by offering up their parking spots.

Parking Panda will next target Austin, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, which should greatly expand the company’s inventory of parking spaces. Currently, Parking Panda has more than 20,000 parking spaces available for rent in Baltimore (where the company was founded), Washington, D.C., and the Bay Area.

Unfortunately for New Yorkers, it may be some time before we can take advantage of Parking Panda. Miller says that NYC’s transportation industry is so unique that the company would have to completely revamp its operations to function in the city. For now, it’s simpler for Parking Panda to focus on more traditional transportation markets.

Parking Panda sees a future in event partnerships. It’s the official parking partner for the Baltimore Grand Prix – meaning racegoers may reserve their parking spots ahead of time — and it’s also partnered with the local ticketing company MissionTix.

Parking Panda has raised around $750,000 from angel investors, including Jose Marin from IG Expansion, newBrandAnaytics CEO Neil Kataria, David Troy from Shortmail, and Sean Lane from BTS.

Barney Pell, a serial entrepreneur who once built robots for NASA and sold a machine-learning based search engine to Microsoft at a reported $100 million, has taken on a new challenge: parking.

QuickPay, a Bay Area-based startup, is a mobile app that people can use to pay for parking in lots and garages. Today, the company announced it has raised $3.5 million in seed funding and has appointed Pell as its chief executive.

How does QuickPay work? Users can enter their credit card information into the app to gain access to garages, parking lots, and gated facilities that are integrated with QuickPay. The service launched last year and is live in more than 100 locations in 12 cities in California, Colorado, and Nevada. The company has access to 12,500 parking spaces across the country.

Similarly to car-sharing marketplace Getaround (a startup that Pell invested in), QuickPay prides itself on its hardware. The company’s GateKit works in parking facilities with entry and exit barriers. When drivers pull up to a QuickPay-enabled garage, they scan a QR code from the app to open the gate. If they scan the QR code again, they’re charged through the app. Pell told me it’s a better user experience for parking operators who can fill up empty spaces, as well as drivers, who can avoid parking tickets.

In an interview with VentureBeat, Pell said he became obsessed with the parking problem after attending a barbecue in San Francisco’s Mission District. Crawling through busy streets, he couldn’t find anywhere to park. Frustrated, and late to the party, he bumped into Carl Muirbrook, QuickPay’s then CEO. Pell became more involved, made a small investment, and then joined the 20-person company full-time.

Quickpay is not the only company that claims to make it easier to discover and pay for parking. Competitors include ParkMe, a free app to help users find nearby parking, and ParkPlease, a web-based service for space owners to list their spots.

In future, the company plans to differentiate itself by delivering analytics to garage owners to make it easier for them to fill empty spots.

QuickPay investors include Detroit-based Fontinalis Partners and leading Silicon Valley VC firms Andreessen Horowitz and Advanced Technology Ventures.

Top image via Shutterstock

Think of it like Airbnb, the service that lets you rent out spare rooms to travelers in your home, for parking.

Parking Panda is a win-win for both parking spot owners, who can earn extra cash with very little effort, and those looking for parking, who will likely end up spending far less than they would in a big lot.

The company was a part of NYC’s Entrepreneur Roundtable Accelerator’s first class, which presented on stage during ERA’s demo day today. Parking Panda was originally founded in Baltimore, but it has since moved to ERA’s Times Square office.

Using the service is simple: Parking spot owners need only sign up for an account, take a photo and create a description of their available spot, then mark down the dates and price. Those looking for a spot can find and pay for one via the Parking Panda website, which also sports a mobile optimized interface. Once a spot is rented, the owner will eventually get a check (minus Parking Panda’s 20 percent commission) in the mail.

The company says that last year, $20 billion was spent on parking in the US alone (plus $10 billion internationally). Clearly there’s plenty of potential for a parking marketplace. Parking Panda launched two weeks ago in Baltimore, where it facilitated parking for 117 cars. The company plans to expand to Washington D.C., Boston and Philadelphia soon.

Parking Panda was founded by Nick Miller (CEO), who previously worked in product management at LivingSocial, and Adam Zilberbaum (CTO), formerly lead engineer at GAAP software. The company is seeking a $750,000 seed investment.

Image via Parking Fail

Ultra-low power sensors are installed in parking spots, which can detect if the space is occupied. Sensors can also be installed in the parking meter to verify whether the meter had been fed and therefore detect violations.

According to Streetline, 30 percent of traffic in major cities consists of people driving around looking for parking, making it a major congestion and environmental problem. Parking fines are also a significant source of revenue for cities and currently many violations do not result in fines. Streetline systems are already deployed in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. New York and Washington are about to be added. Streetline charges the city per space, per month in a service model. The company also just did its first deal with a private parking garage.

In addition to detecting parking violations, Streetline will release a smartphone application in early December to direct users to the closest parking pots. Once that is in place, a city could even start doing dynamic pricing of parking spots  in order to direct drivers to particular parking areas. CEO Zia Yusuf told me that there are three major ways to get their product to consumers rather than just cities: the smartphone application, digital signs which direct people to parking (“3 spots if you turn left”) and finally partnerships with car navigation systems.

Ideally, Yusuf would like to see cities introduce integrated parking systems which include monitoring like that supplied by Streetline, mobile payment for parking, alerts when parking time is running out and mobile ticketing. He suggests that a city could even send a ticket to your mobile phone with an offer that if you pay instantly, you get a discount on the fine. Streetline also has ambitions to extend its services into traffic monitoring and beyond.

A couple of other startups received special mentions from the judges. Treemetrics is a local Irish company which uses 3D laser scanning to measure the height, straightness, taper and volume of trees in a forest. This allows foresters to reduce measurement costs and schedule logging to maximise yield.

Sproxil tackles the huge problem of drug counterfeiting in developing countries using a simple scratch-off code attached to the packaging which works in a similar way to pre-paid mobile billing. The user exposes the code and sends it by text message to a verification number which checks its validity.

For IBM, the smartcamp competition isn’t just a marketing exercise. 35 percent of IBM’s $100+ billion in revenue is driven by partners including startups. Irish social security software company Cúram Software, for example, has alone driven 1 billion EU in sales for IBM over the course of their partnership.

The common theme among startups in the finals was IBM’s smarter world mantra of instrumentation, interconnection and intelligence; basically lots of sensors and analysis of the data they produce. Most of the competing startups had deep domain knowledge in areas like healthcare, forestry, water treatment and seismic measurement as well as technical expertise. This fits well into IBM’s focus on vertical markets.

The smartcamp competition was the brainchild of Martin Kelly, the European partner of IBM’s Venture Capital group and the first, smaller-scale competition was staged in Ireland last year. IBM’s Venture Capital group operates an unusual model in that it does not manage its own venture fund (like Intel and Google) but works with VCs to identify startups of interest.

The startups get access to IBM’s market intelligence, customers and local know-how as well as the credibility a young company sometimes needs to deal with large enterprise customers. IBM gets an early look at interesting companies which could become partners or eventually acquisitions without actually investing its own cash. IBM has done 18 acquisitions in the last year alone. The company has set aside $20 billion for acquisitions up to 2015.

Front photo by John Vachon, via Touching Harms the Art