Parking in Denver goes high-tech, provided you want to pay a valet, and a lighting company raises $11 million to make its energy-efficient LED systems smarter. Here are the details:
—CurbStand Rolls Out: It’s not getting any easier to find parking in Denver, but it might be easier to find someone to park your car for you—or at least to pay them for it.
CurbStand this week began offering its service to Denver-area residents. The Los Angeles-based startup has an iPhone app that enables users to pay and tip valets without cash. The app also allows users to find CurbStand-affiliated valets, check availability, and tell a valet to get their car and have it waiting for them when they leave a restaurant or location.
The startup says it has 16 locations in Colorado, with about 10 in the Denver area and a few in Ski Country resort towns such as Vail. As you’d expect, many stands are outside trendy and upscale restaurants, but a few serve large shopping malls and the Breckenridge ski resort. A release said the company plans to grow to 50 locations within a few months and is hiring sales and promotional employees.
The expansion brings the number of valet stands in CurbStand’s network to about 400 in seven markets, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston, and Austin, TX. The company offers its apps to established valet services to use and does not operate them itself.
For Denverites who still want to find their own spots and skip the fees, there are a few options for that, including SpotHero. Denver-based startup Parkifi also is working in the parking space, although it appears to be focused on developing software and sensors for cities and parking lot operators.
—Terralux raises $11 million: Longmont, CO-based Terralux, a maker of LED lighting systems, announced this week that it has raised $11 million. New investor EnerTech Capital led the round, with prior investors Generation Investment Management, Crawley Ventures, Emerald Technology Ventures, GC&H Investments, and Terralux founder and chief technology officer Anthony Catalano joining in.
Terralux’s focus is on retrofitting commercial buildings, particularly offices, hospitals, and shops, with energy-efficient LED systems. The company sells lighting fixtures and adapters, but it appears to be putting an emphasis on its LEDSense software as it enters what CEO Steve Hane has called “the cloud-lighting space.” The company said the cloud-based software works with sensors in its lighting systems and can monitor air quality in a room, detect room occupancy, and provide information directly via smartphones.
The company announced in August it had sold off its portable lighting business to Lightstar Corp. for an undisclosed amount as part of a “repositioning.”
