Company
Spot Parking helps operators run parking with real-time visibility, guidance, and automation — for cities, campuses, venues, airports, commercial properties, and more.
How We Started
Spot Parking was founded in September 2023 in Lehi, Utah by childhood friends and church mission companions who crossed rival university lines to build it: Dean Smith (CTO, computer engineering at the University of Utah), Ryan Hagerty (CEO, Information Systems at BYU), and Cooper Young (Chief Revenue Officer, Finance at BYU). None of them came from parking — they were students living the problem every day.
01
Universities sold thousands of parking permits, but enforcement was inefficient. Staff drove around manually scanning plates or checking windshield tags. Lots filled with unauthorized cars while students with valid permits could not find a spot. At BYU, a permit cost the same as a citation — so many students simply did not buy one.
02
The team brainstormed a way to solve enforcement without expensive sensors in every stall. They built AI-assisted software that uses cameras at lot entrances and exits: when a car enters, the system reads the plate, assigns a tracking ID, and checks it against the permit database. Instead of guards hunting violators, the dashboard flags exactly where an unauthorized vehicle is and how long it has been there.
03
Before raising venture capital, they funded the company through collegiate pitch competitions across Utah — winning BYU Student Innovator of the Year in 2024 and the Tim Draper Utah Entrepreneur Challenge through the University of Utah's Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute.
04
BYU's parking office granted access to existing security cameras to train their models and beta-test the software. The pitch: reduce traditional enforcement operational costs by roughly 65%. After proving the model on campuses, Spot scaled to airports, event venues, hotels, and commercial lots — and raised venture capital to take the platform nationwide.
Founded 2023 · Provo, Utah
“We're more passionate about solving problems — that's why we got into entrepreneurship.”
What Drives Us
Mission
Make parking safer and smarter for the people who use it every day.
Vision
Make real-time parking intelligence a standard feature of every facility.
Our Values
01.
Every decision starts with the people who use and manage parking facilities. If it isn't safer for drivers, operators, or staff, it isn't good for us.
02.
Permits, plate reads, and citations are sensitive. We protect parking-related data end-to-end and design systems that minimize exposure by default.
03.
Operators deserve clear visibility into what the system sees and why it acts. We build tools that show the work — not black boxes.
The Team
Spot is headquartered in Lehi, Utah. Our development team is all in-house and in-person in the US — leading to fast dev cycles and high-quality, great-looking software.
Our sales team is distributed throughout the country, aligned with IPMI's regions, so we meet operators where they are.
Development
In-house, in-person, and US-based — built for fast iteration and polished product quality.
Sales
Distributed across the country and aligned with IPMI regions — close to the operators we serve.
Backed By
After proving the model on college campuses, Spot Parking raised venture capital to scale nationwide. Along the way, the team won some of Utah's top collegiate entrepreneurship competitions.
Contact
Exploring Spot for your campus, property, or portfolio — or want to learn more about how we work — reach out and we'll be in touch shortly.
Start a conversationPrefer email? support@spotparking.app
