Metropolis Technologies, a startup building payment infrastructure for parking facilities, today announced that it raised $167 million in a Series B !⠀
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Co-led by 3L and Assembly Ventures with participation from Dragoneer Investment Group, Eldridge , Silver Lake, UP.Partners, and former deputy mayor of New York Dan Doctoroff.⠀
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Alexander Israel contends that parking payment infrastructure is outdated on the whole. Parking garages are stuck in the pre-internet age, he asserts — disconnected from the digital payments ecosystem (e.g., schemes like Apple Pay and Google Pay). Certainly, there’s on-demand systems like SpotHero. ⠀
Meanwhile, FlashParking, Passport, AirGarage, and Reef Point Technology, Inc. (formerly ParkJockey) have raised hundreds of millions from SoftBank Investment Advisers and others for tech-forward parking management.⠀
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“Metropolis is a mobility commerce company, building infrastructure that allows us to transact in the physical world with the seamlessness and ease we experience online,” Israel told TechCrunch via email. ⠀
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“Our platform powers more than 600 parking facilities, we have more than 1.8 million users, and we connect both to thousands of surrounding restaurants, coffee shops, and retail stores in more than sixty cities.”⠀
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“Metropolis was founded in 2017 with the vision of creating the foundation for future modes of transportation which would allow for seamless transactions and movement,” Israel said. “In order to realize a future with cars that are electric or autonomous, you have to build the infrastructure for them to operate within, and that starts by bringing brick and mortar locations online. Parking and movement within urban environments have not changed in the past 70 years and we set out to change that.”⠀
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Israel says that Metropolis plans to expand its workforce of 2,000 employees to 2,500 by the end of the year to support the expansion. It would appear to have the capital to do so; to date, Metropolis has raised $226 million in total.
Text Credit: TechCrunch
