SpotAngels Scores $2.3M

SpotAngels, a community-based parking app that helps drivers find parking and avoid parking tickets, today announces the closing of $2.3M round of funding from Lars Rasmussen (co-founder of Google Maps), Luc Vincent (former head of Google Street View and VP Engineering at Lyft), Y Combinator, Streamlined Ventures, and Via-ID among others. The funding will be used to expand to cities across the U.S. and enhance in-app features including the launch of a new feature called "predicted availability" which allows drivers to know what the odds are of finding a spot in any given area before heading there. SpotAngels is doing to parking what Waze has done to navigation through its free mobile app.

With the launch of the "predicted availability" feature, SpotAngels will supplement its map with parking availability information on all streets.The new feature works by extracting historical parking data from dash cam videos that SpotAngels collects through members of its community. SpotAngels has developed proprietary computer vision technology to count parked cars on these videos to determine how occupied streets are at a given time (see video showing counting parked cars on the right curb). Unlike previous attempts to predict availability of streets based on traffic, SpotAngels approach is highly accurate since it is based on the ground truth parking situation.

"The SpotAngels founding team is top notch technically. They are focused on a space that it ripe for disruption, with products that stand to improve the lives of millions of people," says Luc Vincent, former head of Google Street View.

Currently the app is used by an engaged community of drivers in over 20 US cities to find parking and avoid tickets. Drivers love it in cities like San Francisco and New York City where finding parking is notoriously tough and street cleaning tickets are an epidemic. It was featured by both Apple and Google as one of the best Apps of 2017 and has saved drivers over $7.5 million in parking tickets alone.The uniqueness of the app is that simply by installing it users contribute real-time data to the community and are protected from parking tickets. The app knows that they are parking or leaving a spot in real-time by using the car's bluetooth connection or phone motion sensors. It sets parking reminders when they park and displays open spots on the map when they leave. This allows the SpotAngels users to see live open spots that open up around them. The more users the more open spots can be displayed. SpotAngels can be described as "Waze for Parking"

The app also displays the location of all street parking spots and garages with detailed rules and prices that the SpotAngels community keeps up-to-date by sending parking signs pictures from the app. Drivers use it to find free street parking, the cheapest parking meter or garage. Here is what their San Francisco parking map looks like.

The new predicted availability feature will be launched in San Francisco by end of year with roll out in New York City following. Drivers in San Francisco, New York City and 20 other U.S. cities use SpotAngels to save on parking fees and tickets.