Park+ raises $11mn in a round co-led by Sequoia India and Matrix Partners India

22nd January 2020. New Delhi: Park+, a startup founded by Amit Lakhotia to digitize parking across India, announced today that it has raised USD 11 million in a round co-led by Sequoia India and Matrix Partners India. A number of high-profile angel investors, including Deep Kalra, Rajesh Magow, Ashish Hemrajani, Kunal Shah, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal also participated in the round.

Park+ is a mobile app-based platform that offers a smart parking automated system as well as a cloud-based security solution for daily commuters, corporates and commercial establishments. As a tech-enabled model, Park+ provides customers and establishments a seamless and real-time experience for parking discovery, booking, payment and tracking, all of which can be easily accessed through their app.

Park+ was founded in July 2019 by Amit Lakhotia, a serial entrepreneur and experienced business leader who has helped build and scale several large businesses, including MakeMyTrip, Paytm and Tokopedia.

"Parking is a massive problem faced across all major urban cities in India. Global studies show that drivers spend anywhere between 10-15 minutes every trip locating parking spots, which creates stress and wastes both time and fuel. The issue is worse in larger Indian cities, which are incredibly congested and difficult to navigate. Many drivers wind up parking randomly on the road, which creates a nuisance for the municipal bodies and other commuters. With technology, we are looking to solve the problem faced by drivers and commuters on a daily basis.' said Amit Lakhotia, Founder, Park+.

India has close to 50 mn cars registered, with 70% of them concentrated in the top 15 cities. The parking infrastructure in these cities is not structured enough to deal with such a high density of cars.

"The best startup ideas solve real world pain points, and Amit's idea for Park+ is a perfect illustration of that. Parking is a very tough problem to solve, and we felt it would take a founder like Amit to build a parking platform company for India. Having worked closely with Amit at Tokopedia, I am personally thrilled to get a chance to partner with him a second time.' said Shailendra Singh, Managing Director, Sequoia Capital (India) Singapore.

"It is well known that parking is a big problem in most Indian cities. We are privileged to partner with Amit Lakhotia and our co-investors Sequoia India in helping solve this problem at scale. Amit's depth and breadth of experience in working with leading internet companies is a big asset for building Park+ into a large and successful company.' said Avnish Bajaj, Founder and Managing Director, Matrix India.

About Park+:
Park+ is a smart parking solution provider that aims to streamline the challenges faced by the daily commuters through an all-inclusive platform that offers parking services ranging from discovery to payments. The company is currently in development phase and will launch their app shortly.

About the Founder:
Amit Lakhotia has been part of leadership teams of three fairly successful startups in India and Indonesia - MakeMyTrip, Paytm and Tokopedia - over last 12 years. He joined all three companies at nascent stages and played a critical role in scaling these businesses. Amit previously led the digital payments arm for Paytm, India's biggest player in the payment space that is currently valued at ~15B USD. As business head of Paytm wallet, he built out the digital instrument from ground zero, led product, sales, operation, strategy, technology and business teams associated with the wallet business. Amit did his MBA from IIM Ahmedabad after doing B.E. (Computer Science) from NSIT, Delhi.

About Sequoia India:
Sequoia helps daring founders build legendary companies from idea to IPO and beyond. Sequoia India operates in Southeast Asia and India where we actively partner with founders from a wide range of companies, across categories, including BYJUs, Carousell, Druva, GO-JEK, OYO Rooms, Tokopedia, Truecaller, Zilingo, Zomato and more. We spur founders to push the boundaries of what's possible. In partnering with Sequoia India, startups benefit from 47 years of tribal knowledge and lessons learned working with some of the world's most enduring companies. From the beginning, the vast majority of money we invest has been on behalf of non-profits and schools like the Ford Foundation, Mayo Clinic and MIT, which means founders' accomplishments make a meaningful difference. For more information on Sequoia's work in India and SE Asia, visit sequoiacap.com/india

About Matrix Partners India:
Matrix Partners India is an investment firm with approximately $1 billion under management. Founded in 2006, the firm invests in companies targeting the Indian consumer and enterprise market at the seed, early and early growth stages. Matrix India has invested in several market leading companies such as Ola (local transportation), Quikr (online classifieds), Practo (digital health platform), Dailyhunt (mobile local language platform), Treebo (digital hotel chain), Limeroad (social e-commerce platform), Mswipe (mobile POS), Five Star Business Finance (SME lending), OfBusiness (credit led B2B marketplace), Ola Electric (multimodal electric vehicle platform), Razorpay (payments), Stanza Living (tech enabled student housing platform) Vogo (scooter sharing) and Cloudnine Hospitals (leading chain of maternity hospitals), among others. Matrix India has advisory offices in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. Matrix Partners has a global network of funds investing in the US, China and India, with approximately $5 billion under management. Further information is available at www.matrixpartners.in