Member Article

Smart parking app JustPark celebrates record-breaking crowdfunding campaign

Smart parking space locator app, JustPark, has reached its £1 million crowdfunding target through Crowdcube after just four days.

The London-based startup is currently overfunding to the tune of £1.7 million (171% of its original target) and is set to close the round shortly.

However, the pitch will remain open for further investment for a limited period of time (unless it reaches the maximum investment amount first).

JustPark is the 200th business to fund on Crowdcube, the UK’s largest investment crowdfunding platform, taking the amount of money invested in British businesses on the site by members of the public to over £60 million.

Within the first hour, JustPark received 2.5 investments per minute with more than 1,000 JustPark users having backed the startup’s fundraise so far.

It is also the largest amount of capital raised by a tech company on Crowdcube.

The largest amount raised on the site was Kevin McCloud’s Hab Housing which raised £1.95 million in 2013.

More than 2350 people invested an average of over £700 in JustPark, which doubled its growth profits last year.

This is three times more than the previous largest number of investors in a business since Crowdcube launched four years ago this February.

JustPark plans to use the money it raises to grow its community of users in the UK and around the world, as well as to create new technology following the world-first in-car app it developed last year - in collaboration with BMW - which allows drivers to manage the entire parking process directly from their vehicle dashboards.

Crowdcube co-founder Luke Lang said: “Just like we are revolutionising the finance market, JustPark is disrupting the £50 billion global parking market by letting drivers book off-street parking spaces online wherever and whenever they need them.

“It’s great to see our community of 140,000 registered investors getting an opportunity to invest alongside leading venture capital firms like Index Ventures and BMW i Ventures.”

JustPark founder Anthony Eskinazi said: “We are hugely excited to offer our existing users and members of the public the chance to claim a stake in JustPark’s future growth, particularly given that our business is all about collaboration.

“We are operating at the heart of the sharing economy, with our customers providing each other with the solution to the parking headache by opening up their underused parking spaces to drivers. This crowdfunding round will allow us to work together with our most passionate users to build the business to greater heights.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .