Nominee Name/Nominee Company NameCityLIGHTS Award: SpotHero
Finalist for the:CityLIGHTS - for companies with $25MM+ in revenue
About the Nominee:SpotHero is the digital parking leader and the largest platform to buy and sell parking in North America. Our mobile apps and website are designed to help consumers find, book and access off-street parking in over 7,500 locations, bringing price transparency, convenience, and safety to drivers. Additionally, leading mobility companies use the SpotHero developer platform to power seamless parking at scale for fleets, connected cars, and urban mobility solutions.
SpotHero’s mission began with just 50 spots in Chicago, as it initially wanted to be the Airbnb of parking. The next three years were spent developing the Chicago market penetration to make sure it was done correctly before expanding into new cities. SpotHero began recruiting parking operators by offering new services like monthly parking packages and partnering with different Chicago-based events to become official parking sponsors.
SpotHero later expanded into cities like Washington DC, Baltimore, and New York City. It grew to become the leading player nationwide as it grew into new markets, and ultimately acquired our largest competitor, Parking Panda. This helped the company expand into Canada and incorporate legacy partnerships with major sports teams. SpotHero has also entered into partnerships with leading mobility companies such as Waze, Moovit, Google Assistant, and Hertz.
In August 2019, SpotHero closed a $50 million Series D led by Macquarie Capital, the largest global infrastructure asset manager and financier, bringing SpotHero’s total funding to $118 million. With Macquarie leading the round, the investment provided strong validation for the pressing need to digitize urban parking infrastructure.
Today, SpotHero offers parking in over 300 North American cities and has parked over 50 million cars. SpotHero is recognized by TIME Magazine as one of 50 Genius Companies “inventing the future” and is the clear market leader.
Why they should win:SpotHero should receive this award due to its relentless pursuit of consumer innovations and formation of a digital marketplace in a formerly low-tech industry. Through SpotHero’s Labs program, SpotHero has advanced the sophistication of parking systems. It has shown that such digital transformation serves the interests of consumers and parking operators and allows municipalities to re-envision urban mobility including dynamic future systems for controlling congestion and avoidance of contagion.