The key pillar to Spacer’s strategy has been to source, utilise and commercialise unused ‘space’, typically from households and small businesses. The next phase of growth will focus on offering commercial inventory and car park sharing with the acquisition of Parkhound.
“Following our most recent round of funding, the second phase of business growth is focused on tapping into Australia’s $1 billion market for parking space by acquiring peer to peer market leader Parkhound,” said Michael Rosenbaum, CEO and co founder Spacer.com.au.
“With cities becoming increasingly densified through urbanisation, many new apartment builds are only allocating one parking space for a two-bedroom unit, making parking ‘rentals’ high in demand along with self storage,” he said.
Parkhound has over 55,000 members that can exchange and lease parking spaces with other drivers. Local residents and businesses make money from leasing a parking space and drivers get a cost effective and hassle free parking experience.
“Acquiring Parkhound is a key milestone achievement for the business and a strategic move to become the leader in ‘space’ globally. Parkhound has built a solid foundation to successfully trade one of the biggest commodities, city parking.
“This complements Spacer’s business model that already includes parking to expand our offering and become the market leader. We have been following the company for some time and are excited to take Parkhound through its next growth stage,” continues Mr Rosenbaum.
The acquisition includes all intellectual property including database, tech platform and customers, bringing Spacer’s suppliers to over 20,000 across storage, parking and warehouse space. Parkhound also brings a number of business partnerships with CBD parking operators who improve their yield on underutilised capacity.
“We’ve built Parkhound from initial concept to a thriving marketplace serving the Australian community,” said Rob Crocitti, co founder of Parkhound.
“The acquisition of Parkhound not only gives both businesses the opportunity to scale and grow, it’s also beneficial to our customers so we’re happy with the outcome. We will continue to work with Spacer for a seamless handover and look forward to seeing the marketplace continue to grow and serve communities across Australia and the world,” said Mr Crocitti.
Launched in October 2015, Spacer has raised nearly $5 million in total investment from private and angel investors to date, with the company experiencing 20 per cent month on month growth in revenue.
The next phase of Spacer’s business growth is to concentrate efforts in becoming the market leader in parking rentals, building warehouse space listings, expanding further across the U.S. and extending its portfolio with B2B listings.
