[Funding alert] Parking spot reservation platform ParkSmart raises Rs 1.5Cr from ah! Ventures, Marwari Angels

Delhi-based parking spot reservation platform ParkSmart on Monday said that it raised Rs 1.5 crore from ah! Ventures, with participation from Marwari Angels.

Founded by IIT Delhi graduates Prateek Garg, Vishva Sharma, Rahul Gupta, Rishabh Nagpal and Ratan Sethi in 2019, ParkSmart allows people to search, reserve, and pay for a parking spot through a mobile application. It also provides IoT-based smart parking solutions for malls, hospitals, institutes, and corporates, among others.

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Founder Rishabh Nagpal explains that the parking problem requires digitisation at both the ends — the demand, and the supply side. On the demand side, the startup allows users to book their spot, and on the supply side, it solves the problems of the parking operator by leveraging technologies like IoT.

"The size of this industry can be estimated from a simple fact that our cars are 'parked' 95 percent of the time. The digitisation of the parking industry in India is in its nascent stage, and has a lot of untapped potential in terms of the large amount of meaningful data that can be collected from a single parking lot," he adds. 

According to a statement released by ParkSmart, the raised funds will be utilised to innovate futuristic technological solutions for the Indian parking industry, funding purchase orders for the existing IoT solutions, and increasing the number of parking spots available for booking for its users.

Commenting on the investment, Subrata Patra, ParkSmart Deal Lead and Venture Partner, ah! Ventures said,

"Parking is nightmarish in large cities around the world. Urbanisation and the increasing middle class have not only aggravated the problem but also brought many more Indian cities and micro-markets to the fore. With the integration of deep technologies like AI, and with an extra push on operational efficiency, ParkSmart is well poised in solving parking pain-point at scale, and in clocking strong profitable growth in this high growth market."

This is ah! Ventures 57th investment, taking its total investment portfolio to Rs 178 crore in over 42 startups and 57 investments with nine exits to date.