There’s just no way helping people find and pay for parking is sexy. But it’s an industry that many people think can be helped by technology, and investors are now putting big money into their startup picks.

Streetline, a Foster City-based company that works directly with cities to embed sensors in parking spaces, is announcing today it’s closed $25 million in Series C financing led by True Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures, on top of $15 million it raised a year ago.

There are many others in the space, including Barney Pell’s QuickPay, and BMW’s ParkNow, a $10 million project whose leaders I just met with next week.

They all cite the same statistics: parking is a $25 billion industry in the U.S., and as much as 30 percent of urban traffic congestion is due to people looking for parking. And they all have various strategies for getting apps into people’s hands and cars (Streetline’s mobile app is called Parker), and helping parking providers dynamically manage demand.

Streetline has 30 deployments at cities and universities in the U.S. and Germany. What makes it distinct from other players is this network of wireless sensors that the company deploys within cities. That gives it the added distinction of calling itself an “Internet of Things” company — definitely a sexy startup topic.

And, Streetline actually doesn’t itself help people make mobile payments for parking, but instead integrates with other players in the space like Parkmobile and PayByPhone.

Categorised as: Chief Digital Officer | Digital Media | Feedster

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