INRIX Acquires 'Smart Parking' Company ParkMe

INRIX, which provides traffic data to high-profile clients around the world, has agreed to acquire ParkMe, a company that provides a “smart parking” service that allows customers to locate, reserve and pay for parking via their smartphones.

The deal will allow INRIX to expand the features and data that it provides to clients, such as Tesla Motors Inc TSLA and Google Inc GOOGL GOOG.

Terms

The terms of the deal will not be disclosed, but ParkMe co-founder Alexander Israel told Benzinga that all 25 members of the ParkMe team, including co-founders Israel and Sam Friedson, will be joining INRIX.

ParkMe and INRIX have already been collaborating on projects for about three years, so the transition on the business end should be a relatively smooth one.

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“Both myself and our team, as well as our investors, are very excited about this deal,” Israel said on Thursday.

ParkMe’s list of investors includes Fontinalis Partners, a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Bill Ford that seeks to invest in companies with creative next-generation mobility solutions for moving goods, people and services.

Expanding Distribution

For ParkMe, joining forces with INRIX means that it will be soon be able to expand its reach and bring its database of 20 million parking spaces to a much larger group of drivers. “What this deal does is take our distribution network to millions of more cars so that users can have access to data and find and pay for parking,” Israel told Benzinga.

What’s Next

Now that the INRIX deal is complete, the next step in the evolution of ParkMe will be to explore ways to use INRIX’s capabilities to provide users with on-street parking data. In addition, Israel says that ParkMe will continue to develop its transaction infrastructure, which allows drivers to pay for parking via their navigation systems or smartphones.