Founded in 2015, and a pioneer in the Rs 200-crore domestic digital parking space industry, the start-up with its technology helps parking operators and facility managers upgrade physical parking lots into digital hubs with control access and cashless payments
Mobility start-up Get My Parking is looking to double its revenue to USD 5 million (about Rs 37 crore) this fiscal, on the back of an expected complete unlocking and economic revival both in the domestic and international markets, its co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Rasik Pansare has said.
Founded in 2015, and a pioneer in the Rs 200-crore domestic digital parking space industry, the start-up with its technology helps parking operators and facility managers upgrade physical parking lots into digital hubs with control access and cashless payments.
The platform’s smart parking technology is currently deployed in over 250 parking lots in 10 metro cities in the country. Besides, it also has presence across 17 other countries, including the US, Latin America, Australia, Europe and the West Asia. In addition to largely catering to the corporate sector, Get My Parking maintains a few government projects also, including one in Hyderabad.
‘We are currently doing USD 2.5 million in revenue, and we are looking at doubling the top line (revenue) this fiscal to USD 5 million,’ Pansare told PTI in an interaction. Pansare said the company turned Ebitda positive in the financial year ended March 2021, which is an important thing to have happened, considering that it was achieved in a pandemic year, he said. Ebitda stands for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization.
Business from the corporate parking space accounts for 70 percent, and the rest 30 percent comes from the parking facilities that are under the government’s ownership, he said. He said the company has mopped up USD 10.4 million funds so far, including USD 6-million raised from IvyCap and IAN Fund in June this year. As much as USD 4.5 million of the total capital have already been invested in product and market development besides inducting fresh talent, Pansare added.
The mobile app-based parking management system seeks to simplify parking by digitizing the entire process from ticketing to auditing. To users, the app provides information on the nearby location of the parking lots, availability of parking spots, and ticket pricing so as to avoid overcharges. Noting that the company is growing at 25-35 percent in the Indian market annually despite the pandemic, he said the growth in the international markets is much higher at around 200 percent.
‘The US and Europe have opened up 100 percent and are seeing huge tailwinds there. We are also hoping that once India opens up 100 percent, we will probably benefit from tailwinds here also,’ Pansare said. He said that thanks to the cautionary opening up of the economy, people are demanding technology where there was no technology earlier. ‘This is helping us digitalize more parking lots all over the world.’ ‘We are seeing huge growth in the number of deployments we are doing and the interest we are getting from the markets we are operating in,’ Pansare stated.
In the past 3-4 years, the company was focusing a lot on Europe and had expanded a lot there. And, after establishing in those markets before the pandemic, it started focusing on the US market as well, he said. For the past six months, the company has been getting a lot of inbound demand from Latin America and also started getting interest from companies working in Australia, Pansare added.
‘Before the pandemic, growth in the Indian market was organically quite stable. There are low-hanging fruits for digitising smart parking in this market and we have already captured that very fast before the pandemic,’ he said. In India, the business grew exponentially until pre-pandemic. ‘After that, it has been very organic and steady,’ said Pansare. The domestic digital parking market is pegged at around Rs 200 crore, while there is a huge unorganised market that needs to be digitalised, he added.
As against this, the global parking industry is estimated to be valued at USD 100 billion. The smart parking segment of that is valued at about USD 10 billion. As the country opens up, more people start going out more. How does technology demand by the consumer plays out in the India market will have to be seen, he said.
Pansare added that the start-up is currently working with a large automotive company to clinch a business opportunity apart from Mercedes-Benz, with which it already has a tie-up. ‘We have certain OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) working with us, who are not consumer car makers, but are suppliers and enablers for the passenger car makers,’ Pansare said.
He added that the company is already into the business of providing technology to automotive companies, to bundle their services and its parking solutions together, and provide it to the OEMs. With the increasing deployment of connected technology in the cars, such partnerships are expected to grow further in the future, he said. The company has a lot of partnerships with corporate parks, who along with institutional campuses, want to digitalise their respective parking spaces, Pansare added.
PTI
Source: Business World
