Streetline Closes $25M Financing To Enable Internet Of Things For Smart Cities

FOSTER CITY, Calif., Jan. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Streetline, Inc. today announced that it has closed $25 million in Series C financing led by True Ventures, and new investors Citi and Qualcomm Incorporated, acting through its venture investment group, Qualcomm Ventures. Pro-rata follow-on investments were made by Sutter Hill Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners, and Fontinalis Partners to complete the round. The Series C financing augments the $25 million credit facility Streetline recently secured from Citi that enables the company to offer innovative financing options for municipalities deploying smart parking solutions.

Over the last twelve months, Streetline has expanded its real-time smart parking solutions to more than 30 cities and universities, including its first two European deployments in Braunschweig, Germany and Birmingham, U.K. Streetline intends to use the additional funding to build on this momentum and further extend its footprint globally.

"Streetline is harnessing the power of the 'Internet of Things' to tackle one of the great unsolved urban problems: parking," said Zia Yusuf, president and CEO of Streetline. "With more than 30 deployments in both the U.S. and Europe, we've moved beyond smart parking as a concept to smart parking as a reality. This investment is a validation of Streetline's achievements to date and represents a considerable endorsement of our future growth potential globally. We are delighted to welcome our new investors True Ventures, Citi, and Qualcomm and the continued support of Sutter Hill, RockPort Capital and Fontinalis."

The Internet of Things: a $15 Trillion Market While people often think the Internet's impact is primarily centered on entertainment and social networks, GE chief economist Marco Annunziata argues that the next decade will focus on the industrial aspects of the Internet, which has the potential to become a $15 trillion industry.

The concept called the "Internet of Things" is based on networks of wireless, easily deployed sensors that transmit data back and forth to enable new insights and suggestive actions. Streetline recently announced a collaboration with Cisco, as part of the networking giant's Smart+Connected Communities program, to bring smart parking to two Silicon Valley cities ( San Mateo, Calif.; San Carlos, Calif.) and reduce the time and frustration of finding an open parking spot.

"If our cities can 'talk'…for example, a parking space or fire hydrant or street light can transmit data to us in real time…we can dramatically improve the way our cities function and change the way we all live and work," noted Yusuf.

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