A valet startup that counted BMW as an investor is shutting down its consumer business
Zirx, a startup with the goal of changing the worst thing about city driving - finding a parking spot - is shutting down its consumer services, according to a note on the company's website.
Among Zirx's investors is luxury-car maker BMW's venture arm, BMW i Ventures.
The company isn't entirely disappearing, however: instead, Zirx will start putting its resources entirely toward its enterprise operations, according to its note.
Zirx will keep operating through February 29.
The company says it's shutting down its consumer-facing business for three main reasons:
- The difficulty of scaling its on-demand consumer parking business
- The fact that its enterprise business, while growing, required "more and more resources"
- The difficulty of growing both its B2C and B2B businesses simultaneously without "unlimited resources."
Zirx worked by renting spaces in numerous strategically located garages - instead of just circling the block on your behalf, Zirx asked car owners to input their destination via an app and then use their GPS location to track the driver's arrival. A valet then met the driver and would take the car to a secure lot leased by the company.
When the owner is ready to return home, a few taps of the app gets the car returned to the owner's location, wherever they are. Besides valet services, Zirx offered car washes and oil refills.
Zirx wasn't alone in the space - its biggest on-demand parking rival was Luxe, another valet service. Both services offered B2B and B2C services.
When Business Insider spoke with Zirx last year, the company estimated that one-fourth of its business comes from relationships with companies, though it declined to discuss other metrics. Luxe has seen the same signals and launched its own enterprise arm, Luxe for Business, in December 2014.