Parket launched to automate parking lots in South Africa

Established in 2019 by Joshua Raphael, Parket was the first company in South Africa to offer a high-volume parking solution with ticketless parking lots that provide better convenience for landlords, visitors, and tenants.

He said, "It is more cost-effective for landlords and much more sustainable for greener buildings. We not only provide complete turnkey digital infrastructure based on license plate reader access, advanced management software, and digital payments, but we also have a VIP experience parking app that allows users to add their license plates and bank cards and simply drive in and out of our parking lots for automated access and payments."

Raphael established Parket after seeing people struggle to find parking in the streets of Cape Town's CBD, when some buildings were only 70% occupied. He built a website to bridge these two markets that became the "Airbnb for parking." Parket began to roll out to more buildings and worked on the access control to complement the solution. 

"COVID-19 struck, and revenue went to zero, but slowly started to creep back in late-2020. After growing month-on-month in revenue and onboarding more parking lots, Parket started receiving angel funding and growing the team," Raphael said.

"As we focused on gaining more parking lots and building on the product, we began to build and develop around allowing parking lot visitors to pay without requiring an app. This developed into our "scan to pay" service, which allowed users to pay for the license plates with SnapScan, Zapper and card on their phones," said Raphael.