Tritech Media, the technology innovator controlled by the Kirsh family, has acquired 30% stake in South African smart parking startup KaChing to improve its solution for shopping mall owners and their retailers.
KaChing is a cashless, ticketless parking system and smartphone application, designed to make payment for parking easy and convenient for visitors.
According to William Kirsh founder and CEO of Tritech Media, “With KaChing we further improve our global-first solution for shopping mall owners and their retail clients to engage precisely with consumers.”
Tritech Media will integrate KaChing with its other location-based technologies Ionizr, Geospatial Data Solutions, Spatialedge and ProximityID; to allow 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,” added Kirsh.
Developed by patented technology that utilises license plate recognition (LPR) software to smooth the parking experience, KaChing processes more than 12,000 parking transactions per month and 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.
“Our technology is an excellent example of disruptive technology brought to market to improve the parking experience in a mature industry,” said Jaco Marais co-founder and Managing Director of KaChing. ”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”.
After the deal, 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.
Servest Parking handles parking management in 8 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.
