“It didn’t take a genius to realize that if I couldn’t find any useful online information for finding parking in San Francisco, then drivers in Paris, Shanghai, and thousands of other cities around the globe were probably also struggling with the exact same problem,” explained Eugene Tsyrklevich, founder and CEO of London-based parking platform Parkopedia, in an interview with VentureBeat.
It was way back in 2007, during the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, that Tsyrklevich tried to find a place to park his rental car before his arrival at the event. But after Googling for reliable parking information for the Moscone Center, he came up blank. So he left home earlier than should otherwise have been necessary and circled the block several times until he finally found somewhere to park. “That was the spark for the idea — helping drivers find somewhere to park — which I launched in 2008,” Tsyrklevich explained.
Meet Eugene
Eugene Tsyrklevich is a computer engineer who holds a BSc and MSc in computer science from the University of California, San Diego. He initially learned how to code in high school and went on to fund his university education by working as a software engineer at a number of tech startups during the late ’90s dotcom boom, which had exploded while he was at university. He started his first business, a consulting company specializing in computer and network security, just after the dotcom revolution went belly up in 2000. “I had the opportunity to travel the world, get paid for legally breaking into corporate networks, and to train the U.S. military in hacking — all before I graduated from university.”
After graduating, Tsyrklevich continued consulting, and he went on to work in finance after moving to London in 2004.
Fast-forward 10 years from that frustrating day outside the Moscone Center, and Parkopedia is now one of the biggest parking data compendiums in the world. Headquartered in London, the company describes itself as a “Wikipedia for parking,” and — through a suite of apps — serves up information on availability and pricing of parking meters, parking spaces, parking lots, and even private driveways for hire.
Image Credit: Mark Earthy
Parkopedia today
Much has changed at Parkopedia since the original incarnation was unveiled back in 2008, as the entire connected landscape has shifted from desktops to the pocket, with many cars now permanently online too. Moving with the times as a fledgling startup is always difficult, but when you’re completely new to an industry, things are just that little bit harder.
“When I had the idea for Parkopedia, I knew nothing about the parking industry, maybe apart from how to feed a parking meter,” said Tsyrklevich. “The first version of the website, which I built myself, allowed drivers to find parking lots in San Diego and San Francisco. Within months, we expanded to London and Sydney, and we have carried on adding cities ever since.”
Though Parkopedia is a consumer-facing service in its own right, claiming around three million monthly users, it’s not a household name like Uber, Google Maps, or some other transport-focused services. But it has achieved scale by powering countless third-party services from major global brands. Today, Parkopedia says that it serves more than 6,000 cities across 75 countries.
In 2015, GM subsidiary OnStar launched AtYourService, a new “commerce and engagement” product that connects drivers with merchants during drives — serving up information and offers related to their route and destination, including hotels and places to eat. Parkopedia was one of the launch partners, used by OnStar to give subscribers in North America and Europe a “premium parking service” that includes dynamic space availability. This week, the duo renewed their deal, which will extend the partnership by another three years.
Back in 2011, Parkopedia added Garmin to its Roster of clients, powering the GPS tech giant’s navigation devices with such data as real-time parking space availability. This was followed a year later by a global deal to power BMW’s in-car parking information service.
Last July saw what was arguably Parkopedia’s pièce de résistance when the company inked a global deal with Apple to power parking information in Apple Maps. And shortly after that, Parkopedia entered an agreement with TomTom to provide data to its own automotive customers, followed by Audi China a few months later. Throw into the mix Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, Peugeot, Toyota, and Volvo, and you start to get an idea of Parkopedia’s reach.
“With the continued growth of Parkopedia’s coverage, as well as explosion of connected devices and cars, Parkopedia grew rapidly and now works with most car manufacturers globally,” explained Tsyrklevich.
Show me the money
What’s perhaps most notable, in this age of unicorns and failed tech IPOs, is that Parkopedia has yet to take on a single dime of venture capital. Moreover, the company says that it’s profitable, making enough money through licensing its services to its business customers and funding everything from its cash flow.
“When we were starting out, we did consider taking on VC investment and pitched to a number of firms,” said Tsyrklevich. “However, we didn’t raise any VC investment and ended up bootstrapping to profitability.”
Whenever a major client is announced, says Tsyrklevich, his company gets a lot of interest from VCs, but he isn’t interested at the moment. “Being profitable and funding our growth and product portfolio development organically, we are currently not actively looking for money,” he said. “This may change in the future with potential acquisitions or entry into new markets.”
Parking in the digital age
