The place is taken: how parking startups cashed in on “viral social phobia”

During the pandemic, parking startups were out of work and massively cutting staff. Now they are doing much better than before: demand is growing and becoming more even. Investors believe

At the height of the pandemic, cars in the United States were idle on access roads, city streets were empty, and regular commuters worked from their beds. But most importantly for any driver, back then it was much, much easier to find a parking spot.

To a small group of IT startups helping people find and book parking spaces, it all felt like a real post-apocalyptic horror movie. In April 2020, the revenue of SpotHero, which develops an app to find free parking spaces, fell by 90% compared to February of the same year. Then they had to lay off half of the employees. “Those were really tough times for us,” says CEO Mark Lawrence.

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