- Kerb is an Australian-founded parking platform, which went live on iOS, Android and atwww.kerb.works in Oct 2016.

- Kerb lets anyone with an empty parking space, garage, or driveway LEASE their space and make money from short- and long-term private rentals. Kerb takes 20% of every transaction.

- Kerb allows anyone looking for a parking space close to where they live, work or pay to RENT a space on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.  Kerb handles the ordering and payment arrangements and provides turn-by-turn GPS directions to the selected parking space.

- Kerb Bays lets anyone with a carpark - be that a church, a school, a university, a shopping centre, a sports complex, a hotel, or a commercial parking lot - list their spare bays on Kerb in just a few clicks.

- Kerb is localized for 300 cities in 15 languages + English. It has been international from Day One and has 'global' baked into its DNA, including the choice of an easy-to-pronounce name that could one day become a verb.

Kerb’s market

- GLOBAL. Parking is a problem that neither the developed nor the developing world has managed to solve. The global market for parking is estimated to be somewhere between $500B-$1T

- P2P + B2C (INDIVUDUALS + CAR PARKS). There is so much parking inventory available in the centre of most cities, but no solution has been able to unlock that inventory. Kerb solves that problem. We believe that the market for Kerb is bigger than the addressable market for USD34b Airbnb.

 

- NOT JUST CARS. Kerb has tailored its product for multiple vehicle types - including motorbikes, caravans, trucks, buses, boats – and even helicopters. The market for boats alone could become a significant revenue stream for Kerb, as could the market for motorbike parking in the Developing World.

REVENUE AND PROFIT PROJECTIONS (All figures in USD’000)

                                                                      2018           2019             2020             2021              2022

Gross Revenue                                          164             987            16594         119655         529513      

Net Revenue (20% commission)           33              197              3319           23931         105903

Operating Profit/(Loss)                       (1546)         (2748)          (2358)          14702           83330

 

FUNDING REQUIRED/INVESTOR TERMS

The company is in the middle of a USD2.5m Seed round (pre-money valuation of USD10m), and is looking for USD1.2m to close the round, in exchange for 11% equity. Minimum investment parcel is USD100K.

Funds raised will be used to expand Kerb into 12+ European cities, and 2 cities in the Philippines, to further prove the business model, in preparation for a USD5m Series A raise (target valuation of USD30m) in Mar/Apr 2019.

 

Planned Investments include the following:

-          1 x Software Engineer (Indonesia) and 1 x Software Architect (Indonesia) to accelerate product development

-          Online marketing (Facebook, Outbrain, Yahoo mail ads)

-          Offline marketing (leaflet drops)

-          PR Agency(s) to generate media opportunities in the target markets

 

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

-          Company was established in Brisbane, Australia, in Mar 2016.

-          First product (Kerb iOS and Android apps) went live in Oct 2016.

-          Self-funded to August 2017, when Kerb’s first angel investors came on board

-          Live (and has actual parking space listings) in 9 countries (Aus, NZ, Singapore, Vietnam, UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Canada), but really only proactively marketing in Aus, NZ, UK, Ireland.

-          New (full-feature) website went live in May 2018

-          All Kerb Bays underlying tech now in place. Version 1 of the Kerb Bays (carpark management software) web interface will go live in September 2018

-          Italian version of Kerb now live. French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Vietnamese versions to go live in July 2018.

 

PRESENT MARKET

-          Peer-to-Peer parking spaces for cars, motorbikes, boats and helicopters – in Australia, New Zealand, UK and Ireland

-          iOS app, Android app, full-feature website at www.kerb.works

 

TARGET MARKET EXPANSION 

-          Kerb Bays car park management interface to bring private and commercial car parks onto the Kerb platform. Typically, these will be church/hotel/school car parks. Some commercial car parks have also contacted Kerb, seeking partnership arrangements. We’re in discussion with a major Australia-New Zealand retail group at the moment, re helping them monetize their thousands of parking spaces – which are fully booked at weekends, but which mostly sit empty during the week.

-          Kerb will be launching in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and the Philippines from July-Oct this year. Other European countries may follow sooner, subject to funding. Latin America will be a focus from early 2019, with North America, the Middle East and Asia our focus once we have got through a Series A round.

 

PRODUCT PRICING – REVENUE STREAMS

         Pricing

-          Users set their daily parking space rates.

-          Later this year, Kerb will be introducing visual (green-orange-red) indicators during the sign up process  later this year to ensure that parking space owners are pricing their spaces at a competitive rate

-          Ultimately, Kerb plans to bring in dynamic pricing, whereby Kerb dictates the price for parking space, based on demand vs supply in a particular suburb, on a particular day, and at a particular time.

         Revenue Streams

-          Peer-to-peer spaces for cars/motorbikes (Kerb takes 20% commission on every booking)

-          Kerb Bays car parks (various pricing models, included a discounted commission model and a monthly licensing model)

-          Marinas/Boats. Kerb is talking to a number of marinas in Australia and NZ. Prices for wet-berths and dry-berths vary, but a dry berth in a premium location in a city like Sydney will cost between $800-$1800 per month. Which is potentially a very lucrative future revenue stream for Kerb.

 

COMPETITION

-          Global DNA. Kerb is one of just 15-20 parking apps around the world, but it is the only one which has ‘Global’ built into its DNA from Day 1. The other apps are all localised to a specific city or country.

-          Brand. The name 'Kerb' was chosen for its suitability across international markets, and its potential to become a verb or a noun. ("Let's Kerb it"; "On se fait un Kerb?"; "Vamos pegar un Kerb"). No parking app with the word 'park' in it is likely work internationally, because 'park' in many languages relates to a green space where you walk your dog, and has nothing to do with parking a vehicle.

-          Speed-to-market. Because Kerb has set up its DNA to be global from Day 1, it can move into new countries very quickly, and without the need for ‘boots-on-the-ground’. In this regard, Kerb’s model is far more akin to Airbnb’s (footprint in 198 countries, but physical offices in just 12 countries) than Uber’s model (physical presence in every major city in which it operates). Other parking apps are watching Kerb, because they have seen a) how aggressive our expansion plans are, and, b) how quickly we can move into markets with minimum resources.

-          Automation. Kerb’s two co-founders both held senior/executive positions at ASX 50 global education group, Navitas Ltd. During their time there, they rolled out the biggest ever instance of Marketo (#1 marketing automation software), in multiple languages and across 50-or-so countries. ‘Automated communication’ with Kerb’s users and leasers – from personalised on-boarding to surfacing ‘interesting moments’ happening on the Kerb website and in its apps, to best-of-breed compliance with the EU’s new GDPR legislation, are significant strengths that Kerb’s founders bring to the table, and are likely to save the company a lot of time and money as it grows.

Multiple vehicle types. No other parking app in the world offers parking for boats, trucks, caravans, motorbikes – in addition to cars. Kerb’s founders believe there are significant revenue opportunities with these other vehicle types, from farmers and rural land-owners monetizing their land for campervan travellers, to having Kerb become the default global parking app for boats.

 

MANAGEMENT

The Kerb team is comprised of a group of highly driven professionals who are experts in their respective fields. Combined, the team has over 20 years' experience in international marketing, global full-stack tech deployments at scale, marketing automation, digital content, social media marketing, and design. With the exception of Nick Gatehouse, who came to Kerb from an executive role at Scentre Group/Westfield, and Paul Bowler, who a background in the Energy/Infrastructure industry, Kerb’s Senior Management team previously worked together at ASX50 global education group, Navitas Ltd.

STRENGTHS

Brand. Kerb is building a very strong international brand (a quick look at its engagement and following on Facebook is evidence of this). It’s choice of name (pronounceable from Sapporo to Strasbourg to Sao Paulo); the likelihood that ‘Kerb’ could become a verb, in the same way that Uber, Airbnb and Google have; and its strong brand mark are all testament to this. 
Technology. Kerb is building what it believes will be the very best parking app available – not just for cars, but for boats, campervans, motorbikes, etc. We are building a raft of features which will not only have a significant positive impact on revenue, but which are designed with an ‘international context’ in mind. The parking requirements of a property manager in a condominium in Bangkok are very different to those of her counterpart in Brisbane or Buenos Aires. Kerb understands this, is consulting with property managers around the world to inform its product features, and is building a very complex technology platform which will give it far more optionality than any of its competitors – each of which is localised to a city or country – has.

Functionality. Within the App itself – once the desired Kerb parking space has been selected all iOS and Android users have turn-by-turn navigation to this location, with one click, via an integration with Apple Maps and Google Maps.

International knowledge. Parking in Los Angeles is different from parking in London. The South-East-Asian cities of Singapore and Saigon have totally different congestion and parking issues, but also have some very real similarities when it comes to parking in residential condominiums. The security realities of parking a vehicle in Brazil or Bogota are very different from many other places in the world. Kerb needs to understand these and tailor its product to cater to the needs of drivers and property managers in each of those markets.  Which is what it is currently doing.

 

RISK ALLEVIATION & EXIT STRATEGY

Kerb envisages an exit in 5-6 years via a trade-sale to one of the following:

International Property Group. Kerb solves a very real problem for a group such as Savills, JLL, CBRE, BlackRock, et al. Each of these entities has tens of thousands of parking spaces under management, but not one of them has a platform such as Kerb to manage the booking, allocation and payment-collection of those spaces.

Global Car Manufacturer . Most of the main car manufacturers are concerned about what the future may hold: they know that there is a transport revolution coming, they just don’t know what it’s going to look like. It’s no longer enough for a car manufacturer to sell you a new car; if they can help you park it as well, it gives them a significant competitive advantage over their competitors. Kerb is in technical discussions at the moment with a major car manufacturer in Australia, which is exploring options to integrate Kerb into its in-car dashboard as a parking app (many now have weather and traffic a music apps, but parking is an obvious missing app). Similarly, all of the major car manufacturers have – or are working on – car-sharing products. But having somewhere to park those cars is a dilemma they are struggling with. Kerb would give any of those car manufacturers instant access to tens of thousands of parking spaces around the world.

Global Car-Hire Company. For many people, it costs less per day to hire a vehicle from Hertz or Avis or Europcar than it does to park it – which detracts from the customer experience. Kerb is currently in partnerships with a major European car hire company re making available spaces for their share-cars. Kerb believes that, once it has a sufficiently large footprint of parking spaces across the world, it could become a very attractive acquisition target for a global hire-car company.

Technology ‘unicorn’. Kerb’s management believes that it will only be a matter of time before one of the tech unicorns really starts to take an interest in ‘parking’ around the world. We see this as more of an opportunity than a threat. Parking does not fit Airbnb’s model (90% of guests reportedly arrive at an Airbnb property without a car – which makes sense, particularly for visitors to a city away from home), and Uber’s drop-off-pick-up-drop-off-pick-up model for people, parcels and meals is not a natural fit for a parking app. But either of these companies might be interested in acquiring Kerb in 5-5 years’ time, as might a Google, Waze or Grab.