Earlier this year, Parking innovator JustPark launched its equity crowdfunding round on Crowdcube and immediately gained not only funding but a ton of attention.
JustPark is seeking to lead the disruption of the £50 billion global parking market by allowing its customers to book off-street parking spaces online wherever and whenever they need them. Since its debut, the company has over 650,000 registered users and over 150,000 parking spaces. It is backed by BMW (since 2011) and international venture capital firm Index Ventures (since 2014).
JustPark’s listed parking spaces include:
- Over 250 car parks (currently works with NCP, three large parking companies and 5 UK councils)
- Hotels (takes bookings at hotels such as Hilton Hotels, IHG, and Accor)
- Over 23,000 private homes
During its run on Crowdcube, JustPark raised £3.7 million from 2916 investors, who purchased 15.61% equity. Now, c0-founder of JustPark, Anthony Eskinazi is ready to share his thoughts about crowdfunding and how the business was saved thanks to the campaign.
While revealing his reaction to the campaign’s success, Eskinazi stated to The Guardian:
“If I could go back and talk to my 23-year-old self, I would give myself a slap. I burned out a dozen times in the first two years, making myself ill. I was doing it on my own, I had no money.”
He then explained that believes the secret to a successful initiative boils down to two key things, excitement and momentum:
“People have to be excited to invest in your business. Excited about the financial opportunity, about being part of something special, wanting to join the journey with you.”
Also noting how he and his team approached the project, Eskinzi shared:
“Everything we did was carefully timed to make sure that if there was any lull, we would have a press release ready to announce a new product or upcoming event. We wanted to really capture the attention of anyone who was potentially looking to invest.”
In regards to campaign going stagnant, he added:
“When we launched the campaign we had the best part of 600,000-700,000 customers, so we knew if we hit a downturn and couldn’t maintain momentum, we could send out emails to our customers to get a surge. That was our safeguard.”
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