SpotHero

Type| Private
Industry| Parking
Founded| 2011
Founder| Mark Lawrence
Larry Kiss
Jeremy Smith
Headquarters| Chicago, IL,

United States

Area served

| North America

Key people

| Mark Lawrence (CEO)
Larry Kiss (CTO)
Chris Stevens (CMO)
Services| Parking reservations

Number of employees

| 219 (July 2018)[1]
Subsidiaries| Parking Panda
Website| spothero.com

SpotHero is a digital parking marketplace that connects drivers looking to reserve and pay for parking spaces with parking lots, parking garages and valet services. The company, which operates a mobile app and website as well as a parking developer platform,[2] is available in over 300 cities in the United States and Canada . The company is based in Chicago, Illinois.

## Contents

* 1 History
* 1.1 Early beginnings
* 1.2 Growth and expansion
* 2 Acquisitions
* 3 See also
* 4 References
* 5 External links

## History

### Early beginnings

SpotHero was founded by Mark Lawrence and Jeremy Smith in Chicago in 2011, with co-founder Larry Kiss joining the company soon after.[3][4] The company started out as a peer-to-peer parking marketplace, where people could rent out their own private parking spots, before expanding the platform to partner with parking companies and garages.[5][6]

In December 2012, SpotHero raised $2.5 million in venture capital funds from Battery Ventures (lead), 500 Startups, Bullet Time, e.Ventures, OCA Ventures, New World Ventures, Lightbank, and Draper Associates; at the time, it only served Milwaukee and Chicago.[7][8] In June 2014, SpotHero raised an additional $4.5 million in funding and announced new board of directors members, including LinkedIn's Mike Gamson, Match.com's Sam Yagan, and venture capitalist Sam Guren.[9] The company raised $20 million in Series B funding in 2015,[10] and an additional $30 million in a Series C round in July 2017.[11] In September 2018, the company raised an additional $10 million, bringing its total raised since launching to $68 million.[12] In August 2019 SpotHero announced $50 million in Series D funding led by Macquarie Capital, bringing the company's total funding to date to $118 million.[13]

### Growth and expansion

Between 2011 and 2013, the company expanded from 5 employees to 22, grew to seven business markets (Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, Baltimore, Newark, and Milwaukee) and opened an office in New York City.[3][14] By August 2015, SpotHero serviced 5 additional cities: Denver, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.[15][16] In July 2016, the company expanded to Los Angeles,[17] and in January 2017 added 13 additional cities, including Austin, Indianapolis, Miami and San Diego.[18] In 2020, the company was recognized as the fifteenth-largest privately held consumer marketplace.[19] As of November 2020, the company services over 300 cities in North America with a network of over 7,000 garages.[20]

SpotHero for Business was launched in March 2017, as a business-focused service with features and tools for paying, managing and organizing parking expenses.[21] The company also launched a free developer platform to help businesses integrate parking reservations into their existing apps.[22] In May 2017, SpotHero announced a partnership with commuter employee benefits administrator WageWorks allowing users to pay pre-tax dollars for daily parking near their places of work.[23]

In 2018, SpotHero was named to Time (magazine) magazine's inaugural list of 50 Genius Companies that are inventing the future.[24][25] According to Time, "By allowing users to reserve a spot rather than circling dense city centers, apps like SpotHero can help stem congestion and pollution."[24] That year, SpotHero purchased 500 Waze beacons for $15,000 and gave them to the Chicago Department of Transportation to install in the lower roads of downtown Chicago, broadcasting an open signal so GPS will work properly.[26][27] Following an integration of its technology with Google Assistant and Hertz rental cars, SpotHero announced that it had readied 500 parking facilities in Chicago for driverless cars.[28][29]

In March 2019, SpotHero partnered with transit app Moovit to offer drivers the chance to view and book off-street parking near transit stations in San Francisco, to help ease road congestion in the Bay Area.[30][31] In June 2019, it was reported that SpotHero was partnering with Waze, a GPS navigation software app owned by Google, to link their navigation and parking into a unified user experience.[32]

In early 2020, the company launched SpotHero IQ, a dynamic pricing product allowing operators of parking garages or lots to adjust prices based on real-time data.[33]

## Acquisitions

In April 2015, SpotHero acquired San Francisco-based peer-to-peer parking marketplace ParkPlease.[34][35]

In April 2017, SpotHero acquired Parking Panda, a Baltimore-based services and event parking company.[36][37] The acquisition expanded SpotHero into Canada, and brought the number of parking locations the company could reserve at to over 5,000.[36][37]

In November 2020, SpotHero acquired the Toronto-based app Rover Parking, helping the company access thousands more parking locations across Canada.[38]

## See also

* ParkWhiz
* Parking Panda

## References

1. ↑ "500 of SpotHero's Chicago Parking Areas Now Ready for Driverless Cars". Americaninno.com. July 10, 2018. https://www.americaninno.com/chicago/chicago-startup/500-of-spotheros-chicago-parking-areas-now-ready-for-driverless-cars/. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
2. ↑ "SpotHero launches developer platform to expand its parking inventory into third-party apps". Venturebeat.com. February 14, 2017. https://venturebeat.com/2017/02/14/spothero-launches-developer-platform-to-expand-its-parking-inventory-into-third-party-apps/. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "On Demand Parking App SpotHero Raises $4.5 Million In Series A Funding". MarketWatch. 2014-06-11. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/on-demand-parking-app-spothero-raises-45-million-in-series-a-funding-2014-06-11. Retrieved 2015-01-14.
4. ↑ Kate Rogers, "SpotHero: An app that makes parking reservations," CNBC , May 7, 2015.
5. ↑ Kia Kokalitcheva, "SpotHero launches its parking app in SF, and on-demand valet startups should worry," VentureBeat, December 9, 2014.
6. ↑ Alex Moazed, "SpotHero Paves the Way for Parking," Inc., November 18, 2016.
7. ↑ "Chicago's SpotHero Raises 2.5mm to Bring Sanity to Urban Parking". Forbes. 2012-12-13. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyreid/2012/12/13/chicagos-spothero-raises-2-5mm-to-bring-sanity-to-urban-parking/. Retrieved 2015-01-14.
8. ↑ Rao, Leena (2012-12-13). "SpotHero Raises $2.5M From Battery, Lightbank To Help You Reserve Parking In Garages". Tech Crunch. https://techcrunch.com/2012/12/13/spothero-raises-2-5m-from-battery-lighbank-to-help-you-reserve-parking-in-garages/. Retrieved 2015-01-14.
9. ↑ Janega, James (2014-06-11). "SpotHero announces new funding, board members". Chicago Tribune. http://bluesky.chicagotribune.com/originals/chi-spothero-parking-funding-bsi,0,0.story. Retrieved 2015-01-14.
10. ↑ Kristen Hall-Geisler, "SpotHero is ready for the future of autonomous parking," TechCrunch, September 8, 2016.
11. ↑ John Pletz, "SpotHero tops off with another $30 million," Crain's Chicago Business, July 18, 2017.
12. ↑ "SpotHero raises $10 million to hire developers, upgrade its parking reservation tech". Chicago Tribune. September 6, 2018. https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-spothero-raises-10-million-20180906-story.html. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
13. ↑ "SpotHero Announces $50 Million Series D Funding Led by Macquarie Capital" (in en). 2019-08-22. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190822005097/en/SpotHero-Announces-50-Million-Series-D-Funding-Led-by-Macquarie-Capital.
14. ↑ Sara Ashley O’Brien, "App could save you from parking tickets", New York Post, September 21, 2013.
15. ↑ Matney, Lucas (2015-08-19). "On-Demand Parking Service SpotHero Raises $20M In Series B". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/19/on-demand-parking-service-spothero-raises-20m-in-series-b/. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
16. ↑ Kokalitcheva, Kia (2015-08-19). "Forget valet apps — SpotHero raises $20 million to let people park their own cars". Fortune. http://fortune.com/2015/08/19/spothero-raises-20-million/. Retrieved 2015-11-26.
17. ↑ Ally Marotti, "SpotHero expands to LA, plans to add other West Coast cities", Chicago Tribune, July 19, 2016.
18. ↑ Meg Graham, "Chicago-based parking startup SpotHero pulls into 13 new markets", Chicago Tribune, January 26, 2017.
19. ↑ "The a16z Marketplace 100: Index". https://a16z.com/2020/02/18/marketplace-100-index/. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
20. ↑ "SpotHero raises $50 million to bring underutilized parking spaces online". Venture Beat. August 22, 2019. https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/22/spothero-raises-50-million-to-bring-underutilized-parking-spaces-online/. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
21. ↑ Paul Sawers, "SpotHero for Business launches to help employees submit parking expenses directly", VentureBeat, March 15, 2017.
22. ↑ Paul Sawers, "SpotHero launches developer platform to expand its parking inventory into third-party apps", VentureBeat, February 14, 2017.
23. ↑ Cheryl V. Jackson, "SpotHero, WageWorks team up for pretax on-demand parking near your job", Chicago Tribune, May 16, 2017.
24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 "Genius Companies 2018: SpotHero". Time. https://time.com/collection/genius-companies-2018/5412656/spothero/. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
25. ↑ "Chicago's SpotHero, Cameo join Apple, Amazon and other tech giants on Time list of companies 'inventing the future'". Chicago Tribune. October 4, 2018. https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-spothero-chicago-time-list-20181004-story.html. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
26. ↑ "Waze Lights the Beacons to Guide Drivers Through Chicago's Tangled Streets". Wired. September 12, 2018. https://www.wired.com/story/chicago-waze-beacons-spothero-gps/. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
27. ↑ "Chicago is installing beacons to keep your GPS from freaking out on Lower Wacker". Chicago Tribune. August 29, 2018. https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-spothero-waze-chicago-lower-drive-beacons-20180828-story.html. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
28. ↑ "SpotHero is getting parking garages ready for driverless cars". Chicago Tribune. July 23, 2018. https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-back-story-mark-lawrence-spothero-20180716-story.html. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
29. ↑ "SpotHero introduces 500 autonomous car-ready garages in Chicago". Venturebeat.com. July 10, 2018. https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/10/spothero-introduces-500-autonomous-car-ready-garages-in-chicago/. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
30. ↑ "Moovit trials smart parking service in San Francisco". Cities Today. March 14, 2019. https://cities-today.com/new-smart-parking-service-san-francisco/. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
31. ↑ "Moovit taps SpotHero to show parking spots in multi-modal transit app". Venturebeat.com. March 12, 2019. https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/12/moovit-taps-spothero-to-show-parking-spots-in-multi-modal-transit-app/. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
32. ↑ "Waze and SpotHero partnership aims to cut parking-based congestion". Traffic Technology Today. June 28, 2019. https://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/news/smart-parking/waze-and-spothero-partnership-aims-to-cut-parking-based-congestion.html. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
33. ↑ Council, Jared (January 29, 2020). "SpotHero to Launch AI System for Dynamically Priced Parking". Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/spothero-to-launch-ai-system-for-dynamically-priced-parking-11580293801.
34. ↑ Amina Elahi, "SpotHero buys ParkPlease in attempt to bolster San Francisco presence," Chicago Tribune, April 21, 2015.
35. ↑ John Pletz, "SpotHero acquires San Francisco competitor," Crain's Chicago Business, April 21, 2015.
36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Amina Elahi, "SpotHero buys Baltimore-based competitor Parking Panda," Chicago Tribune, April 13, 2017.
37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 Kristen Hall-Geisler, "SpotHero acquires Parking Panda," TechCrunch, April 13, 2017.
38. ↑ Chen, I-Chun (September 10, 2020). "SpotHero to buy Rover Parking to continue expansion in Canada". Chicago Business Journal. https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2020/09/10/spothero-to-buy-rover-parking-to-expand-in-canada.html.

## External links

* Official website

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