Mathew Magno’s parking technology startup Japa Inc. had momentum last year when the pandemic hit. At the time, Magno had several new clients lined up and the company was on track to hit about $2 million in revenue.
“But then Covid happens, and all those projects shut down,” Magno said. “We were like, no way, this is just the worst. What are we going to do?”
Magno co-founded Japa in 2017 with Charles Chen as a class project when they were both students at the University of California Davis. The company developed an app designed to help businesses, universities and cities manage their parking assets, while providing drivers with a mobile application that lets them know where to find an empty parking space. The app is used in conjunction with a plastic puck sensor, which is installed in parking spaces to relay data to building owners and drivers.
Japa made a splash early on, winning the first-place prize at both the UC Davis Big Bang! Business Competition and the Sacramento Kings Capitalize contest. In 2019, the company landed a contract with Siemens Building Technologies to manage its parking systems. The same year, Japa inked a deal with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District to manage its 90-space, three-story garage.
But the company’s main target market was colleges and universities. In 2019 it installed its parking system in several garages at the University of California Berkeley. This was followed by a $200,000 contract with UC Santa Barbara, where it manages a 1,127-space parking structure.
The company earned about $90,000 in revenue in 2019 and Magno was spending most of his time on the road, pitching Japa to University of California schools, community colleges and private colleges throughout California, including in San Diego, Santa Barbara and Irvine.
“They were all interested. It was so exciting,” he said.
But as Covid hit, universities shut down and suddenly the company’s best sales prospects evaporated. One project that got scuttled due to Covid was a deal Japa was finalizing to manage some 3,000 parking spaces at California State University Sacramento.
But rather than panic, Magno said he and Chen changed gears and started pursuing other clients.
"We didn't want to just sit around and wait for the universities to open again, so we pivoted to other verticals.”
This is how Japa landed new customers including Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas. The company’s system monitors parking spaces for the disabled and alerts the hospital once a patient parks. The company also signed a deal with a Dutch Bros. Coffee location in Galt, installing 18 sensors in the drive-thru lane to get data on how long the line is, and how long customers are at the menu and window.
“It provides real-time wait times for the drive-thru,” Magno said.
In addition to landing new clients, the company recently closed a seed round of $750,000, including $500,000 from Base Ventures in Berkeley.
Kirby Harris, founder and managing partner at Base Ventures, said he’s been investing in startups for some 20 years and has seen other “smart parking” products, but Japa stood out.
“From the efficiencies of implementation to the software integration and the low cost of implementation, it had the right magic formula,” Harris said. “They’re laying the groundwork, developing customers and partnerships. It’s still early innings, but I think they’ll go a long way, and we’re here to help them build their startup into a large enterprise.”
Magno said Japa is using the venture capital to scale up. The company recently hired three new employees, including a software engineer and two salespeople. Japa is also developing new products, like an autonomous parking payment feature.
“You won’t have to mess with tickets or putting money into a kiosk,” Magno said.
Other Japa clients include the city of Woodland, where it has installed parking sensors throughout the downtown area. “Commuters can now use the app to find parking and get notified when their timed parking space is about to expire,” Magno said.
Japa is also pursuing projects with the city of West Sacramento and UC Davis.
Magno said the company had about $400,000 in revenue in 2020 and is on track to make about $1.4 million this year.
Since mid-2018, Japa has been based out of a three-bedroom rental house in Woodland, where Magno and Chen live. But now that they’re hiring more people, Magno said they’re looking into renting an office.
“As we continue to grow, we’re looking to hire a CFO, HR person and more engineers,” he said. “This is just a really exciting time for us. Even during the worst of Covid we never thought about quitting. That’s just not in our blood.”
The Essentials
Japa
Founded: 2017
CEO: Mathew Magno
Employees: 5
Headquarters: Woodland
2020 revenue: $400,000
