Gurugram-based startup Park+ will become profitable in the January-March 2024 quarter, its founder and CEO Amit Lakhotia claimed in an interview with Mint. Thereafter, it is targeting full-year profitability in FY25. The company has been in losses since it was founded in 2019.
Interestingly, almost 50% of the $50 million in funding it has raised so far from investors such as Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners and Epic Capital is still in the bank. And 80% of the ₹140 crore it raised last December – at a valuation of $340 million – is also untouched. It may go for its next round of funding in about 8-10 months.
“We have been building our business frugally,” said Lakhotia, a former vice president of Paytm Payments. “You want to build multiple use cases, build a team, and this is a category getting created. So, you just want to make sure you have enough fuel in the tank.” The company has also been making decent revenue, which has made it possible to not dip into the bank account too much.
The company aims to get into 100 cities in calendar year 2024. Currently, it is present in more than 50 cities including Delhi NCR, Bangalore, and Mumbai, with an inventory of more than 250,000 parking slots, 2,500 residential societies, 250 offices, and 35 malls. Park+ also wants to get into cities outside India in FY25, although no specific locations have been pinned down yet.
Pointing out that unlike many other startups that have “hired in bulk and fired in bulk”, Lakhotia said Park+ has not laid off chunks of its workforce at any point despite going through the multiple waves of the Covid-19 pandemic. “First year we had 40 people, second year we were at about 200 people, third year at 450 people, and now we are at about 600 people,” he said, which he said has been made possible by the frugal nature of the company's business model.
Park+ is building a super app for car owners, with all services needed for a car available on a single platform, including finding parking spots, viewing challans, and recharging the FASTag service, among other things.
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