Park+, a startup focused on digitising parking across India, has raised $11 million in a funding round co-led by venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners India, per an announcement.
The funding round also saw participation from MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra and cofounder Rajesh Magow, BookMyShow founder and CEO Ashish Hemrajani, CRED founder Kunal Shah, Snapdeal cofounders Kunal Bahl, and Rohit Bansal among others.
Founded by former Paytm VP Amit Lakhotia in July 2019, Park+ is a mobile app-based platform that offers smart, cloud-based automated parking systems for B2B establishments and daily commuters. The company claims to provide real-time parking discovery, booking, payment and tracking.
“Parking is a massive problem faced across all major urban cities in India. Global studies show that drivers spend anywhere between 10-15 minutes every trip locating parking spots, which creates stress and wastes both time and fuel. The issue is worse in larger Indian cities, which are incredibly congested and difficult to navigate. With technology, we are looking to solve the problem faced by drivers and commuters on a daily basis,” Lakhotia said.
According to data shared by Park+, India has close to 50 million cars, with 70 per cent concentrated in the top 15 cities. The parking infrastructure in these cities is not structured enough to deal with such a high density of cars.
Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital (India) Singapore, said, “The best startup ideas solve real-world pain points, and Amit’s idea for Park+ is a perfect illustration of that. Parking is a very tough problem to solve, and we felt it would take a founder like Amit to build a parking platform company for India. Having worked closely with Amit at Tokopedia, I am personally thrilled to get a chance to partner with him a second time.”