Goldman, Anchor commit $100m to China car park operator

Founded in 2006, it is the market leader with more than 500,000 parking spaces under management as of December. Moreover, Sunsea claims to have evolved from a parking lot operator into a digital parking solutions provider, taking advantage of the digitization under China's new infrastructure and smart city initiatives. 

The company has built its own parking lot software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, which integrates artificial intelligence monitoring, car owner services, and mobile control. Sunsea has also invested alongside Ant Group in TJD Parking, the country's largest internet parking platform.

According to a company statement, private car ownership has been growing at more than 15% per year in China, easily outpacing parking space availability. The ratio of parking spaces to cars is only 46% of the global average. It claims there was a shortfall of 50 million spaces at the end of 2020.

Warburg Pincus led a RMB1.5 billion ($227 million) round for Sunsea in 2017. Two years earlier, Hong Kong-based private equity firm LimeTree Capital acquired an 80% stake in Sunsea for $42 million. The company ultimately bought back LimeTree's position.

Other investment activity in this space includes a Series C round of RMB300 million - led by Gaorong Capital - for AIpark. The company provides artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled car parking and toll management technology to local authorities that want to clamp down on on-street parking.

Anchor was established by members of the Korea principal investment team at Goldman Sachs and most of its deals involve Korean assets. However, the firm describes itself as an Asia-focused GP and has previously participated in deals for China-based companies, including digital marketing platform Cue.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Real estate
• China
• Anchor Equity Partners
• Goldman Sachs