How Park+ Cracked Car Owners’ Biggest Pain Points And Built An INR 131 Cr+ Business

Indian roads are now chock-a-block with private vehicles, with approximately 260 Mn two-wheelers and 50 Mn cars plying across the country, according to Data For India. In fact, the demand for personal transportation has surged in recent years due to rapid urbanisation, rising disposable incomes and health concerns triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.

 The woes of urban traffic explosion are not letting up. Per the Tom Tom Traffic Index 2024, three Indian cities landed among the top five slowest cities globally, thanks to traffic bottlenecks. Worse still, the growing number of vehicles quickly outnumber the less-than-adequate parking slots in megacities and metropolises, severely impairing urban mobility.

Mismanaged and illegal parking has become a daily ordeal for offices, shopping malls and residential projects. Many lack comprehensive planning and new-age technologies required for efficient off-street parking.

Former Paytm executive Amit Lakhotia was aware of the daily challenges that vehicle owners face in India. However, he had a bigger vision and wanted to enhance their overall experience via a comprehensive car app.

A computer science engineer and an IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus, Lakhotia was no stranger to urban mobility. He had launched GetMeCab.com, a network of 25 suppliers and 500 cabs operating in six Indian cities. After Paytm, he worked as a VP (business) at Tokopedia, the largest ecommerce marketplace in Indonesia.

However, within a few years, he felt it would generate greater value by targeting top customer segments pressed for time and looking for convenience instead of addressing a multi-million-user market. So, he returned home and set up Park+ to develop a ‘super app’ for cars. Later, Hitesh Gupta joined as CTO and was elevated to cofounder.

The Park+ app offers a full suite of services. It covers everything from smart parking to paying tolls, fees and traffic challans, insurance renewal, buying fuel and car accessories, test driving and car maintenance. Additionally, one can purchase new vehicles via its partner platform, pay bills and find helpful information regarding RTO services and traffic rules. Essentially, it is all about simplifying the process of owning a car and beyond (more on its core technologies later).

“A car is typically the second most expensive asset for an individual [after one’s home]. While purchasing it is an exciting moment, the day-to-day challenges of ownership – be it parking, wash, servicing or maintenance – can gradually diminish that excitement,” Park+ founder and CEO Lakhotia told Inc42.

As Park+ has expanded its offerings across multiple verticals, it now operates as many as 10 apps catering to different user groups, such as B2C users, toll operators, and apartment and dealership sales teams.

On the B2B front, it provides parking solutions, enabling seamless and secure parking management for residential societies, corporate offices and commercial establishments. Its offerings include automated boom barriers for controlled access, valet services for hassle-free vehicle management, office pick-ups and drops and medical emergencies.

Park+ operates in 50+ cities and 3 Lakh parking locations. It claims to be India’s leading FASTag distributor with 12 Mn+ transactions in its kitty and one of the biggest players in access control. The startup has raised $54 Mn in five rounds from Epiq Capital, Z47 (formerly Matrix Partners India) and Peak XV. And EY also audited it for the past two to three years without raising any red flags. With more than 6 Mn cars listed on the platform and 8 Mn+ users, it has become the country’s largest community of car owners.

Pandemic And How Park+ Coped With A Bumpy Beginning

The startup initially leveraged smart parking solutions as its primary service hook. But within three months of raising a seed round worth $11 Mn, Covid-19 struck. With stringent lockdowns in place, people working from home and many companies giving up on office space to curb real estate costs, the ‘new normal’ was nothing less than a survival threat. Every time Park+ tried to build momentum, a fresh wave of the pandemic disrupted its progress. “The only way out was to find new use cases and stay relevant,” said Lakhotia.

Surprisingly, the pandemic enabled a few solutions. A key initiative was to organise drive-through camps, where 25-30K people received vaccinations. It was a novel way to engage with the user base despite the reduced mobility of car owners.

“Unlike Flipkart or Ola, we were building a unique business with no global benchmarks,” the CEO said. “Everyone acknowledged the need for better car management solutions. However, the real challenge is developing a scalable solution for a complex problem. We adapted and innovated to navigate those uncertain times. But one thing was certain. We were determined to transform car ownership into a seamless, hassle-free experience.”

Secure Access Control, FASTag Drove Growth For Park+

Although the broader smart parking ecosystem failed during Covid, Park+ introduced more localised access controls for residential projects to deliver value. For context, smart parking systems use IoT devices to monitor occupancy in real time and transmit the same to connected networks. All end users, including vehicle owners/drivers and parking administrators, can instantly access this data via a website/app for fast and streamlined movement without human interventions or wait times.

The startup uses RFID tags (radio frequency identification technology leverages radio waves to spot people and objects), readers and cloud-based dashboards to automate the entire parking process for residents. Tags are put on windshields, and whenever a tagged vehicle approaches a designated gate, an RFID reader enables the boom barrier to open automatically, granting secure entry/exit without delay.

For visitors travelling minus these tags, the entry process is more elaborate. An admin must check parking availability via the local network, and vehicle details must be recorded before access is granted. Every piece of data is stored in the cloud for easy retrieval.

The service was first launched in Gurugram (Haryana) and later expanded to Mumbai and Bengaluru. Lakhotia noted that this expansion helped create a new category in the market, one that had not existed before Park+ entered the space. Its RFID tag system now spans residential societies nationwide, and the company has partnered with three of India’s largest real estate investment trusts (REITs) for greater reach.

The startup has deployed its boom barriers to more than 15K sites, with AI-powered hardware monitoring ensuring optimal performance. This system supports 20-25 Mn barrier movements daily, reducing operational errors to just 80, far below the anticipated 2K, resulting in substantial savings on maintenance costs.

Furthermore, the platform leverages data analytics and AI to enhance parking and mobility experiences. By accurately predicting parking fill rates, it can tell users whether parking slots will be available upon arrival.

Another key feature that works well is FASTag services. As Lakhotia would tell you, one of the biggest hurdles in the early days was the lack of digital adoption in parking payments. Before the pandemic, cash payments were the norm, and malls and parking operators had little incentive to go digital.

However, Covid-19 changed consumer behaviour, as people became reluctant to handle physical currency. Park+ seized this opportunity to convince malls to adopt digital payments and gradually expanded its footprint. The startup offers a streamlined, cost-effective solution linked to major banks for recharging FASTags. Apart from the cashless convenience and transparent transactions, it ensures significant savings on toll charges and can be used at many parking lots and select fuel pumps.

Today, 60–80% of FASTag-enabled parking transactions happen through Park+, claimed Lakhotia. The startup has also optimised digital payments, with 75-80% of parking transactions and 90-95% of valet payments being cashless, reducing user friction. Additionally, Park+ proactively alerts users about insufficient FASTag balances before they run out, preventing travel disruptions and enhancing convenience.

Of Strategic Partnerships And Green Mobility Focus

Partnerships are integral to the startup’s growth instead of developing every solution from scratch. “We follow a hybrid approach, building full-stack solutions where necessary and strategically partnering with established players to enhance customer experience and expand our service offerings,” the CEO said. “Our tech ecosystem is fully backed by enterprise resource planning, providing deep insights and ensuring minimal data discrepancies.”

Collaborations with platforms such as MyGate and NoBroker streamline access notifications for residents of gated communities, while partnerships with malls and office complexes improve parking convenience. As for car buying and selling, Park+ has joined forces with Cars24, offering users instant pricing and hassle-free transactions. In a new collaboration with quick-commerce leader Zepto, the startup enables users to purchase and receive car accessories in minutes.

It has also joined hands with strategic partners to set up battery swapping and EV charging zones to make green mobility more accessible. Although Lakhotia did not divulge his plans, the startup reportedly wants to activate more than 10K Park+ EV Zones nationwide. Plus, it will tie up with OEMs, dealers and fuel stations to cater to more vehicle owners and B2B operators.

More interestingly, Park+ went all out to tackle parking constraints in megacities like Mumbai. It approached the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) with a proposal to utilise bus depots as parking spaces during off-peak hours when buses were out on routes.

Is Park+ Ready For An Integrated Bet To Overcome A Fragmented Market?

Despite the disruptions caused by Covid-19, Park+ has staged a strong turnaround through customer-centric, innovative pivots, and its financials reflect this shift. Its operating revenue reached INR 131.26 Cr in FY24, marking 36.5% YoY growth from the previous fiscal year. While its rapid expansion resulted in high losses of INR 100 Cr in FY23, the business demonstrated financial discipline, curbing expense growth and limiting the rise in losses to just 4%, a little over INR 103 Cr in FY24.

Reflecting on the journey, Lakhotia said that an unwavering focus on customer experience got the startup going. “We analysed every touchpoint in a vehicle owner’s journey and sought ways to improve it,” he explained.

“For instance, if a car cleaner doesn’t show up in the morning, can we fix that? Can we provide real-time data if someone reaches the office uncertain about parking availability? Many car owners receive multiple traffic fines, so why not simplify online payments instead of visiting the traffic police station every time? Why should users manually verify that the correct amount has been dispensed when refuelling? By identifying and addressing these everyday pain points, we continuously refined our solutions to enhance convenience and efficiency for vehicle owners,” he pointed out.

Park+ aims to expand its footprint to 100+ destinations in the next eight to 10 months, but there’s more. As the challenges of car ownership are not unique, the startup is mulling overseas expansion as a natural next step. After cementing its position in the market, it plans to enter Southeast Asia in the next 12–18 months, taking its innovative solutions to new geographies.

“At Park+, we have always been committed to building a business model that is sustainable, scalable and frugal. We are not in a race to chase valuations or vanity metrics. Our mission is to delight vehicle owners and ensure success for our B2B collaborators,” said Lakhotia.

But the crux lies elsewhere. From startups to industry giants, a wide array of players are addressing the fragmented facets of the ecosystem, be it parking management, FASTag services, EV charging or vehicle maintenance. OEM-backed mobility startups and fintech companies (think of ParkMe, CRED, Jio-bp) are also entering this space, intensifying the competition.

As the market matures, users will look for all-encompassing service packages with top-notch quality and fast deployment. In brief, all businesses in this space must provide relevant service suites, and time will be at a premium.

It may sound somewhat chaotic, but that is how the landscape is evolving. As new-age vehicle owners lean towards the convenience of technology and top-notch experience, the demand for deep data insights, AI-powered automation and strategic partnerships will continue to grow. Businesses like Park+ are doing it right, and the combination of innovation and customer-centricity positions them well for the future.

[Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal]