Parking app Divvy eschews disruption in favor of collaboration

Divvy began life in Sydney, Australia back in 2011 as a way for people to lease their unused car parking space through the internet. Its business is essentially connecting users with vacant car parking slots in their local area and exacting a small commission in return for the referral.

“Parking in Australia is a major issue,” CEO and founder Nick Austin explains. “Many CBDs in Australia have the most expensive parking in the world – at the same time there were thousands of spaces sitting vacant in these areas – hidden from view.”

Where some controversial startups have been banned because they were trading on public spaces, Divvy forewent that grey area. Instead, like with Thailand’s Parking Duck, it has chosen to focus on privately-owned parking capacity at scale. Divvy sees its main growth now not in disrupting a broken system but in enabling people to find what they need. Up to the present day, Divvy has grown to see as much as 80 percent of its income come from corporate clients and has raised a total of AU$2.8 million (US$2.2m) in investment in mostly venture capital.

City crunch

Key to this growth has been strategic partnerships with some of Australia’s property management giants. By pursuing this directive, Divvy hopes to free up large amounts of unused parking spots in central areas of cities – precisely where it’s needed the most.

As it stands, the changing face of the modern workplace has meant that many workers no longer require the use of a Monday to Friday, nine-to-five parking space in prime city real estate and instead prefer flexible arrangements. Providing a service capable of being dynamically responsive to the changed needs of consumers can now be enabled with new technology.

“As a whole, the collaborative consumption area has become more sophisticated and corporates are keen to collaborate and embrace tech to solve big issues they have – at the same time improved control and data are valuable to these big players,” Austin tells Tech in Asia.

The sharing economy trend counts among it some of the biggest startups in existence – like Uber and Airbnb – and activity in this sector is slated to grow. In Australia, Austin has observed that people are really enthusiastic about change and services offering solutions in the sharing economy have seen huge uptake.

Street parking dilemma

“In Sydney CBD we have 1,200 office towers and only 65 of these have a bookable parking facility. At the same time, street parking is disappearing. As the market is so fragmented it makes sense to aggregate the market into a digital marketplace to improve user interface and utilisation,” he says.

Divvy presently offers monthly parking to its users in a variety of locations dispersed throughout Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Future plans for the company include offering a real-time hourly-based service, releasing a smartphone app, and eventual expansion overseas. Though it still retains the option for users to list their private parking spaces through the platform Austin has stressed that the company focus will remain with assisting businesses reach larger audiences and forming partnerships.

“We are looking at Southeast Asia, Europe, and the US. All cities have the same problem – so it comes down to regulations and partnerships we can leverage to fast-track take-up,” Austin adds.