Startup Streetline has raised $25 million in Series C financing led by True Ventures with new investors Qualcomm Ventures and Citi. Existing investors Sutter Hill Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners and Fontinalis Partners also participated.
The Foster City, Calif. company provides sensors that are installed in parking spaces that are used by consumers to see which streets have open parking spaces. Consumers can then use Streetline's Parker app to find a space. The app has a map with the numbers of open spaces on different blocks. Streetline also is signing up parking garages. Streetline uses technology that counts how many spaces are available in a garage based on the usage of the front gate of the garage. People can also reserve a space in a parking garage using the app.
Parking garages can manage their inventory online and do things like offer coupons. Streetline originally developed the sensors used in the parking space, but has now built a platform for managing information about parking spaces. "We transitioned from sensors, which are still a big part of what we do, to now a data and apps company," says Zia Yusuf, CEO of Streetline.
Cities meanwhile can manage on-street parking in real-time and do things like set up dynamic pricing. Streetline has been rolling out the service in Germany and certain cities in 12 states including California, Delaware, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Washington, DC.
True Ventures is known as a seed and early stage investor. But True decided to invest in Streetline because the firm has known Yusuf for a number of years and it also has a particular interest in the "Internet of things" category.
Citi recently also provided Streetline with a $25 million credit facility--through its municipal finance group, not through Citi's venture capital group. That credit line is used to provide funding for setting up the parking systems. Citi's municipal finance group is interested in funding more of these revenue-generating parking systems, as a different type of municipal finance--essentially an alternative to traditional municipal bonds.
Qualcomm, meanwhile, is interested in the "Internet of things" and how Streetline is deploying its technology. Streetline doesn't currently use any of Qualcomm's chips.
Recently Streetline announced a partnership with Cisco Systems in which Streetline uses Cisco's technology to wirelessly gather the data from the sensors at the street-level parking spaces.
Competitors in this space include mobile app QuickPay, which has focused initially more on providing reservations for parking garages.
