Klever Logic Innovates Parking Industry

Investment activity picked up from the mid-$140 million level seen over the past few weeks, to nearly double at $292.1 million for the latest period tracked.

Though the absolute dollar value swelled, the trends remained largely the same, with FinTech dominating the fund flows at 93 percent of total activity. Only one deal stood above the triple-digit threshold, and that, just barely. LiftForward, which provides small business financing with a focus on manufacturers, retailers, and distributors, garnered $100 million from Monroe Capital. The firm said that the capital would be earmarked for growth within existing verticals.

Quite a bit down the scale in terms of transaction size, Capital First, a non-banking financial company based in India, said that it raised roughly $50 million through a preferred issue.

Debt funding has been a preferred method of financing thus far this month, according to the numbers. The cost of debt is still relatively cheap, so perhaps it is no surprise to see that method currying favor.

Klever Logic Innovates Traditional Parking Payments, Plans To Expand

Klever Logic has been making waves in the parking industry since its debut over five years ago. It started with Flash Valet, a cloud-based parking platform that facilitated mobile payments. Currently, Klever Logic boasts a suite of hardware and software parking solutions for valet and surface lot, gated garage and events parking.

Over 800 locations use Klever Logic’s technology in the U.S. The company, headquartered in Austin, Tex., recently received an additional $3 million in funding to further accelerate growth.

“I spent the better part of the last year-and-a-half looking at over 100 companies to find a place to invest,” said Sam Goodner, lead investor in the current funding round. “When I met Juan Rodriguez, one of the cofounders and CEO of Klever Logic, and learned more about the space, I knew instantly that it was something special.”

As part of the funding round, Goodner joined the executive team full-time as president. “We’re a complete solution — from taking credit card payments as you exit the garage to mobile payments for valets to managing all of the revenue control and systems for parking operators,” he said.

What attracted Goodner and other investors to Klever Logic was its potential to disrupt a massive industry that has lagged behind in upgrading its technology.

“It’s an industry dominated by large, multi-billion-dollar players that have been selling the same old parking technology to operators for decades,” said Goodner.

“If you go to any garage in America that isn’t using our technology, there’s a rack of computer servers in the back of the garage that’s running their parking operation — opening the gates and taking your money.”

Those servers, said Goodner, are inflexible and require constant maintenance, updates and security patches to keep them running.

Traditional parking systems offer few, if any, of the features that Klever Logic’s suite does — features that afford garage owners and parking vendors greater control, oversight and security.

Because Klever Logic has a mobile component and was built in the cloud, owners have easy access to the full view and control of their entire operation without needing to log into multiple systems. Goodner gave an example: “We’re the only parking platform that can do real-time surge pricing. We can program our system to change the pricing and update the digital signage out front in real time.”

Goodner also noted that Klever Logic is the only Level 1 PCI-compliant vendor in the industry.

“We encrypt the credit card at the head of the reader all the way to the service provider,” he said. “We never store a single credit card number on any of our devices.”

Other technologies often store credit card data on their in-garage rack of servers.

So why hasn’t everyone already got on board with Klever Logic? Goodner noted that the parking industry has become set in its ways, not just in terms of technology, but also in how that technology is distributed and installed.

Klever Logic combines technological innovation with direct selling. Parking management systems are typically sold to garages by local industry resellers and distributors, each with different prices. It can take three to four months to install.

“Our industry is used to buying a certain way, and it’s used to a certain set of constraints,” said Goodner. “That’s the biggest challenge that we have. They don’t believe it’s possible at first.”

Klever Logic has transparent, consistent pricing nationwide and can install its system and have it up and running in about three weeks.

With the $3 million in funding Klever Logic received for expansion, expect to see its technology and future updates popping up in a local garage sometime soon.