Tritech Media, the technology innovator controlled by the Kirsh family, has acquired a 30% holding in parking technology provider KaChing.
The remainder of shares in KaChing are held by the founders and Servest, the largest black-owned facilities management company in Africa. William Kirsh will join the board of KaChing.
KaChing is a cashless, ticketless parking system and smartphone application, designed to make payment for parking easy and convenient for visitors. KaChing developed patented technology that utilises license plate recognition (LPR) software to smooth the parking experience. It was awarded The Most Innovative App of 2016 by MTN Business.
By knowing exactly when a consumer’s vehicle enters a retail environment, marketers are now able to deliver pinpoint accurate and relevant advertising to consumers, thereby creating an attractive opportunity for brands and loyalty programs to reward their customers with paid-for, hassle-free parking.
William Kirsh, founder and CEO of Tritech Media, comments: “With KaChing we further improve our global-first solution for shopping mall owners and their retail clients to engage precisely with consumers. We are now able to integrate KaChing with our other location-based technologies Ionizr, Geospatial Data Solutions, Spatialedge and ProximityID; thus allowing marketers to track the entire consumer journey in and around shopping malls, right down to the product line in-store.
“KaChing has a unique dual offering; firstly, precise-based communications; and secondly, the ability for shopping mall tenants to reward loyalty to their brands by providing free parking.”
KaChing is currently operating in Johannesburg at Melrose Arch, Morningside Shopping Centre, Thrupps, Campus Square and the Pavilion Shopping Centre. Ten more facilities will be operational soon across Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.
KaChing processes more than 12 000 parking transactions per month and its user base is growing organically at a rate of some 20% per month.
Jaco Marais co-founder and MD of KaChing, comments: “Our technology is an excellent example of disruptive technology brought to market to improve the parking experience in a mature industry. Tritech Media positions KaChing to further disrupt this industry with the potential of hassle-free parking for brand-loyal consumers and location-relevant brand advertising.
“Tritech Media represents a myriad of proven technologies thereby providing an attractive platform for further development.”
Servest is a leading supplier of facilities management services to over 7 500 clients on 25,000 sites throughout Africa and the UK. Employing more than 35 000 management and staff, Servest delivers international best-practice standards on individual services such as security, landscaping, cleaning, hygiene and parking with market-leading services companies in these sectors in the built-environment.
Servest Parking is Africa’s leading parking management company with operations in eight countries across Africa including Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi and Zambia, managing 85 000 parking bays and handling 250 000 cars parking a day.
Richard Mynhardt, director of Servest Parking, comments: “The KaChing solution, along with our recently-acquired agency of the Designa parking systems and significant investment in our internal audit SPDM systems, put Servest and its Parking Division at the forefront of technology in the parking industry.
“Servest’s aim is to drive technology and solutions-based services to enable our clients to improve the return on their assets with lower risk, higher revenues and quality information. With the Tritech Media group of companies we enhance our product offering and market differentiation, and position the parking division as the industry pioneer across Africa.”