Founders Toby Littin, Brody Nelson, and Warwick Beauchamp bootstrapped their parking app; early seed funding came in, with larger investment following as they pivoted to enterprise parking management.

Early users were event attendees and driveway owners sharing spaces; after the pivot, the startup signed businesses and commercial car parks.

Startup Rollercoaster

The Spark

Frustrated by scarce parking in Auckland, Toby Littin, Brody Nelson, and Warwick Beauchamp founded Parkable in 2015 to build a sharing app that allowed people with unused driveways and other spare parking spaces to list them. The founders worked around a kitchen table and initially targeted event-goers and casual parkers.

The Peak

Early traction came from event parking and small driveway sharing. The concept demonstrated that people would pay to access private or under-utilised parking.

The Drop

The founders soon realised that the consumer market was limited. Driveway listings and casual hosts alone were not enough to build a scalable business.

The Reset

Parkable pivoted to serving businesses and commercial car parks, developing a B2B management platform, integrating with parking hardware (including EV chargers), and offering services tailored to workplace, tenant, and property manager parking.

The Discipline

The team focused on enterprise sales, building reliable software, integrating with hardware, and targeting markets where parking demands and costs are high. They maintained lean operations while scaling abroad.

The Climb

With a refined product, Parkable expanded internationally — including Australia, the UK, the USA, and parts of Asia — and grew its staff to around 50–60 employees. The pivot positioned the company for sustainable growth.

Read more

• https://parkable.com/en-us/blog/parkable-raises-nz-4-million-in-oversubscribed-round
• https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/30-08-2019/parkable-the-airbnb-for-parking-raises-4-6-million-of-funding-led-by-spark
• https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/monetise-your-carpark-startup-parkable-pushes-into-china/
• https://parkable.com/blog/parkable-secures-further-funding-for-usa-growth

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