Mobile parking and ticket paying platform Meter Feeder Inc. announced it raised a $2.6 million seed extension round that will help scale the Braddock-based startup's employee count and future geographic footprint. The company, co-founded by CEO Jim Gibbs and Chief Technology Officer Daniel Lopretto, services payment collection for all metered locations of the Pittsburgh Parking Authority in addition to surface lots and other metered locations for parking-related organizations around the country.
San Francisco-based and transportation-focused venture capital firm Trucks VC led the round with its $2 million investment, followed by a $250,000 investment from seed-stage VC firm Precursor Ventures, also based in San Francisco. Two other firms joined with a combined $350,000 in investments as well.
The round brings Meter Feeder's total funding to "just about $4 million," Gibbs said.
"We're here to future proof city and municipality parking revenue," Gibbs, a recent recipient of Google LLC's prestigious Black Founders Fund, said. "When Covid happened, 95% of all parking revenue just disappeared and we see a way in order for cities and municipalities and parking operators to maintain that revenue even though a lot of people are staying home."
Gibbs couldn't offer specific details yet in terms of how the company will be able to achieve that feat — an addition to the platform's current offerings — but he teased that those details will become known in about a month's time following the closing of the details for an upcoming partnership. For now, a lion's share of parking payments made on Meter Feeder's app go to the parking authority that oversees the management of a given parking space. Meter Feeder then gets an agreed-upon rate from those payments based on the contract it has with the authority, which includes Chattanooga, Tennessee-based parking and property management company BrightBase, an operator that handles parts of parking for New Jersey Transit, as well as the aforementioned Pittsburgh Parking Authority, among others. Gibbs declined to disclose the company's revenue figures.
As for the timeline for the seed extension, he said it took one month to raise the round starting with his first of several weekly phone calls to Trucks VC, which Meter Feeder's previous investor Precursor had introduced Gibbs to initially only to come back on board for a follow-up investment after Trucks VC said it would lead with its $2 million investment.
Gibbs said he's been in conversations for years about trying to raise money for the startup locally, but aside from a prior investment from Morgantown, West Virginia-based Mountain State Capital and Pittsburgh-based Innovation Works, he said local firms have yet to participate in the startup's funding rounds.
"First (local investment firms) were like, 'hey, we're not exactly sure what you're doing,' and we explained to them, they were like, 'oh, we're not sure of your strategy,' so we showed the strategy, and they were like, 'oh, you know, you need a lead,' so we had a lead, and they were like, 'oh, we can't put as much money in as we want to do,' and I was like, now you're just coming up with excuses," Gibbs said. "That's one of the reasons why this whole time period while we were raising, the mantra was to everybody on the team; let's keep the wheels on the bus and look for the believers. Everybody kept the wheels on the bus, my team is amazing and just continued to grow the company while I was out raising."
Meter Feeder's current employee count stands at nine workers, though Gibbs said he's looking to take that up to 15 employees within the year, primarily for jobs relating to sales and software roles. He's also optimistic that raising future rounds, including a possible Series A within a year, will be easier to do following the visibility and size of Meter Feeder's seed extension round.
