AirGarage announced a $23 million Series B funding round in July 2025 . The financing was led by Headline, with participation from existing backer Founders Fund and new investor Fourthline Capital . The San Francisco–based company was co-founded in 2017 by three Arizona State University students – Jonathon Barkl, Chelsea Border and Scott Fitsimones – who launched the startup to address campus parking woes. What began as a student app for renting out home driveways has since become a full “parking facilities operating system” for real estate owners.
The AirGarage story started on ASU’s Tempe campus. Barkl (a physics and economics major) and Fitsimones (computer science) were frustrated with ASU’s expensive, undersupplied parking . With support from ASU’s entrepreneurship programs, they built a peer-to-peer parking app in 2017 that let homeowners rent spare driveways to students. As Barkl explained at the time, “there’s an untapped resource sitting right in front of your house” that could generate income while saving drivers money . Joining the founders early on was Border, a business analytics major, making the trio an all-ASU team.
ASU’s ecosystem played a key role. The startup received a $6,000 E-Seed grant and mentoring from the engineering school, and later entered ASU’s Venture Devils incubator . Barkl notes that being a Flinn Scholar – a full-ride scholarship program – “enabled me to do what I’m doing now” by relieving financial pressure and connecting him to co-founder Fitsimones . Despite initial worries that the university would see them as competition, AirGarage found ASU “welcomed the startup with open arms” as a model of innovation . Within months the team had recruited dozens of hosts on campus and was managing hundreds of parking days through their nascent platform.
AirGarage quickly evolved from a one-off app into a full-service parking operator. By 2018 the founders had shifted focus from individual driveways to entire parking lots for local churches and small businesses. They personally managed these lots – often in triple-digit Arizona heat – to learn the ropes. The real turning point came during the pandemic: when cities emptied, AirGarage lost 90% of its revenue overnight. But a conversation with a frustrated garage owner inspired a pivot to a vertically integrated, software-driven model .
Today, AirGarage’s platform “integrates payments, enforcement, dynamic pricing and operations” for lots and garages . In practice this means installing digital signage and cameras, handling all ticketing and payment processing, marketing available spots online, and even enforcing rules via gig-economy attendants using license-plate recognition. The company’s team-built software uses real-time data and AI to adjust rates based on demand and give owners live dashboards of occupancy and revenue . In contrast to traditional ground leases where owners see little profit, AirGarage offers landlords roughly a 70% share of parking revenue (retaining 30% for itself) . This “full-stack” approach has disrupted an industry that Barkl says was long overdue for change: “Most parking remains offline,” he told Axios. “You can’t optimize assets unless you have visibility”.
AirGarage now manages parking for hundreds of properties nationwide. As of early 2025 the startup reported operating over 300 parking assets across 38 states . That network grew from managing just a few dozen driveways and church lots in Phoenix to signing on urban garages, mixed-use complexes and even hotels and airports. The founders envision applying the same data platform to other real estate uses: Barkl notes that AirGarage is exploring ways for landlords to monetize spaces with food trucks, temporary storage, or even cloud-kitchen facilities. In the longer term, he believes the platform could expand beyond parking into other asset types (offices, hospitality, etc.) by making all of urban real estate “legible” to software.
To fuel this growth, AirGarage has raised multiple venture rounds:
- Seed (June 2019) – $2.3 million led by Floodgate, with participation from Founders Fund & other angels
- Series A (Oct 2021) – $12.5 million led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Floodgate, Founders Fund and Abstract Ventures . As part of this round, a16z partner Sriram Krishnan joined the board alongside Floodgate’s Mike Maples Jr.
- Series B (Jul 2025) – $23 million led by Headline Growth, with follow-on investments from Founders Fund and Fourthline Capital .
These financings bring AirGarage’s total funding to roughly $40–41 million to date . The capital has been used to scale the engineering and sales teams, expand into new markets, and build proprietary hardware (like U.S.-made license-plate cameras) to deepen the platform. In their Series A blog, the founders emphasized that all funds were aimed at “growing our team and continuing to develop our product and service” to improve the parking experience.
Although headquartered in San Francisco today, AirGarage proudly traces its roots to Arizona. The founders frequently cite their ASU experience and local mentors as critical to the company’s DNA. As Barkl recalls, ASU’s Venture Devils was a “developmental league” that helped them think through customer relationships and operations . University honors and scholarship programs gave the co-founders the freedom to iterate on their idea without worrying about tuition or jobs. Their success has in turn become a point of pride: ASU media notes that the former students have built a global business from a simple campus parking app.
With Series B closed, AirGarage plans to double down on technology and expansion. The company says it will invest heavily in sensors, cameras and machine learning to “make the physical world legible to digital systems”. In Barkl’s words, AirGarage is positioning itself “as the digital backbone of a traditionally analog asset class.” With hundreds of properties onboard and more in the pipeline, the founders aim to continue proving that a startup born out of college parking frustrations can reshape a multibillion-dollar industry.
