UPDATE: Parkaze — Marketplace For Privately-Owned Parking Spots

Parkaze is a hassle-free shared economy marketplace where you can rent and host privately-owned parking spots.

The Problem

Finding affordable parking is crazy hard. Annually, Americans waste $73 billion in time and fuel while searching for parking. Interestingly, parking spots are hiding in plain sight. About 30% of all the parking spots in cities are privately owned by people and they are left vacant when they go to work or school.

What The Company Does

Parkaze is a web- and mobile-based online marketplace for private parking spots. The company provides a safe and trusted platform by verifying each renter and host in the platform. Parkaze also builds a highly open and interactive community around Parkaze using its mobile application with services such as integrated payments, messaging, reviews, and more.

The Market

The company estimates that more than 26 million people drive and tap into 4 million serviceable residential spots in the top 10 cities in the United States alone, which creates an overall addressable market size of more than $10B.

Business model

Parkaze has a two-sided transactional business model, taking 15% from hosts of parking spots and 5% from its renters in commissions.

Traction

Parkaze is currently partnering with property management companies in the greater Boston area including Encore Realty, Premier Property Management, and Boston Realty Net. The company is also in conversations with two churches to bring them onto the platform. Parkaze has won or participated in many competitions including BostonHacks, BU Spark! Innovation Fellowship, Social Hack by Fidelity, Tech Wildcatters, BU Summer Accelerator, and the BU New Venture Competiton. The company has more than 50 months worth of booking done through the platform, with 80 hosts and renters combined using the platform. Parkaze generates nearly $1,000 in monthly revenue.

Founding Team Background

Parkaze was founded by BU Alumni Amal Radhakrishnan, Ashwin Pillai and Oindrilla Chatterjee. CEO Radhakrishnan previously worked as a consultant at Tech Wildcatters and a research associate at Stax. He holds a masters in computer science. Co-Founder Chatterjee previously worked as a data scientist at Red Hat and also holds a masters in computer science. In addition to Parkaze, Co-Founder Pillai is also a full stack engineer at MassMutual, and also holds a masters in computer science.

What They Need Help With

Parkaze is looking for more people to add their spaces and become hosts on the platform. The company also plans to fundraise potentially in the Fall. Connect With The Parkaze Team.

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