MeterFeeder, a Braddock-based tech company that is hoping to make it easier to pay for parking, will be part of the latest cohort of the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund.
The startup is one of 50 companies in the second round of the fund, which Google set up in response to financial and societal pressures facing Black founders.
The fund is meant to provide financial support — in the form of non-dilutive funding, or money that doesn't require the company to give up some ownership in return — as well as technical assistance, access to things like Google ads and Google Cloud credits and community support through weekly meetings.
The first fund, which Google announced in June 2020, provided 76 Black-led startups across the nation with up to $100,000.
Since then, that group of founders has collectively raised more than $50 million in funding, Google officials said. More than 80% said they used the funds to hire employees and another 78% said the program helped grow their revenue.
This June, Google and Goodie Nation, a nonprofit that provides support to entrepreneurs, announced a second $5 million investment.
Along with MeterFeeder, the group includes tech businesses ranging from a digital lending platform to a connected care company that equips women with data to navigate health care to a social marketplace for sneaker collectors.
The idea for MeterFeeder formed in 2014 when a colleague at a business lunch had to leave to feed the parking meter, co-founders Jim Gibbs and Dan Lopretto told the Post-Gazette in 2016.
The two set out to develop a mobile app that would help individuals pay for their parking, fleets avoid a ticket, and municipalities manage parking enforcement.
In August, the company expanded services to the city of Pittsburgh.
On Twitter, MeterFeeder said it was "thrilled to be one of the startups backed by the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund."
The #MeterFeeder team is thrilled to be one of the 50 #startups backed by @GoogleStartups Black Founders Fund ????
— MeterFeeder (@MeterFeeder) September 21, 2021
Check out our founder, Jim Gibbs, (aka @heezo) in the video below ????????
#BlackFoundersFund #GoogleForStartups #FundBlackFounders #Google #PGHTech #PghStartups https://t.co/1TZnZtBOhN
This year's cohort was nominated from the founders who participated in the first round.
Mr. Gibbs from MeterFeeder accepted the nomination from Sonja Ebron, the co-founder and CEO of Courtroom5, a Durham, N.C.-based company that offers people a digital legal toolbox for handling a civil court case.
Also on Tuesday, Google announced the creation of a Latino Founders Fund to support Latino-led startups, part of a $15 million initiative to bring economic justice for the Latino community, officials said.
Lauren Rosenblatt: lrosenblatt@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1565.
First Published: September 21, 2021, 10:05 p.m.
