Dallas-based ParkIT has made the list of 12 companies pitching during next month’s Project Entrepreneur Intensive in New York City. 

The April 7-8 program from Rent the Runway Foundation and UBS Elevating Entrepreneurs brings together 200 female-founded startups for networking and educational workshops. Dallas area startups BubblyBox and Coast also will be in attendance. 

Jennifer Ding

“Today women account for less than 10 percent of founders at high-growth firms,” Jennifer Hyman, CEO and co-founder of Rent the Runway, said in a release. “In 2017, this is completely unacceptable and we’re committed to breaking down the barriers standing in the way of women building economically impactful and disruptive companies.”

As one of the companies selected from almost 650 applicants for the live pitch event, ParkIT will have a chance to receive a $10,000 grant and participate in a five-week accelerator program hosted at Rent the Runway.

ParkIT’s patent-pending algorithms, developed by electrical engineers at Rice University, turn parking lot cameras into real-time data collection devices that can aid drivers in finding spaces and help operators better manage their lots. 

“We’ve all experienced the pain of circling and circling for an open space,” said the startup’s CEO and co-founder Jennifer Ding. “When we learned that a major reason real-time data was not available was because of the high cost of the existing solutions to collect it — sensors that have to be installed on every space — we wanted to come up with a better way.”

Currently, university and city parking management teams in Texas, Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Indiana, and Canada are using ParkIT.

Ding said ParkIT plans to continue scaling its technology with pilot partners and build its team. Later this year, it will launch a seed fundraising round. 

Sarah Bradbury contributed to this report. 

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