How SpotHero Gave People the Space They Needed Efficiently

Anyone who has ever had to park a car in a city knows how difficult it is to find the right spot. When SpotHero came out in 2011, it revolutionised the way people looked at parking. No longer did you have to go around town looking for a space to park your car. This digital parking reservation app or service helped people find spots with the click of a button. Drivers no longer had to fight for good spots, or waste time scouring for the right area. So, how did three guys from Chicago change the way people parked their cars? Here’s a look at how SpotHero grew to become one of the best valet services of all time.

About the Service

SpotHero is essentially a digital system for parking reservations. It connects drivers who need a space to park their car, with driving lots, rental areas, and other parking garages. The service has both a mobile-based application and a fully functional website. Since launching in 2011, the service has grown to over 300 cities all around the US and Canada. The company began as a part of Excelerate Labe, which is a tech-incubator based in Chicago. Entrepreneur Troy Henikoff heads operations at Excelerate, helping provide much-needed guidance and support to companies like SpotHero.

Early beginnings

SpotHero was the humble effort of founders Mark Lawrence and Jeremy Smith. Based in Chicago, the duo got the idea for such a service when they saw just how difficult it was for people to find the right spot to park. Co-founder Larry Kiss joined the company soon after, completing the trifecta. The company began as a parking marketplace that helped connect people and rapidly grew into something more substantial. Initially, it helped people rent out their spaces as parking lots, before eventually partnering with existing garages and parking companies.

Funding Rounds

The company raised over $2.5 million through venture capitalists in December 2012. The companies that led that round were Battery Ventures, Bullet Time, OCA Ventures, Lightbank, and New World Ventures. During that time, the service had places and spaces only in Chicago and Milwaukee. Two years later, the company raised an additional $4.5 million and even announced new Directors. In June 2014, the company announced that LinkedIn’s Mike Gamson, VC Sam Guren, and Match.com’s Sam Yagan.

In April 2015, they acquired ParkPlease, which was a parking marketplace based in San Francisco. The same year, they raised through a Series B funding over $20 million, following it up with an additional $30 million through Series C round in July 2017. In the same year, they also acquired Parking Panda, which is an event parking company based in Baltimore. This acquisition helped the company expand its services into Canada, raising the number of locations they had to an excess of 5,000. In 2018, SpotHero raised another $10 million, bringing its grand total to $68 million. However, they outdid themselves and raised another $50 million in August 2019 through a Series D funding. This last round was led by Macquarie Capital, with the total funding raised amounting to $118 million.

Subsequent Growth and Expansion

Within a span of two years, from 2011 and 2013, the company grew from having just five employees to a team of 22. Furthermore, within the same span, they expanded to seven cities, adding Washington, New York, Newark, Baltimore, and Boston to the list. They also opened their own office in New York the same year. Two years later, they had expanded to Denver, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and New Orleans. Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Smith left the company in 2015, to take time off for himself from a busy work schedule. In 2016, they added LA, and a year later had another 13 cities in their roster, including Miami, San Diego, and Austin. Since then, SpotHero has grown tremendously, branching out into over 300 cities across North America, partnering with more than 6,500 spaces and garages.

Later Launches

In 2017, they launched SpotHero for Business to help users with business-focused services. It allowed customers to pay, manage and organize all their parking expenses. Furthermore, the company launched a developer platform to enable businesses to integrate their services with their applications. In May of the same year, SpotHero partnered with WageWorks, which is a commuter-employee benefits service provider. This partnership allowed customers to pay for daily parking spots. They also cooperated with Hertz and Google Assistant to ready over 500 parking areas for driverless cars in Chicago.

Last year, they teamed up with Moovit, which works within the transit space to offer parking near stations in San Francisco. The move went a long way in helping ease the traffic congestion due to delayed parking in the Bay Area. The company is also in talks with Google’s navigation app Waze, to integrate their navigation and parking in a bid to improve user experience.

Thanks to their consistent efforts, parking around the US has become less stressful and easy. By helping over 10,000 people in every city they service, SpotHero has brought on a parking revolution that is giving people the space they craved for, simply and effortlessly.