By Jay Landers
Austin, Texas, Sept. 5, 2024 – In what it bills as a first for the parking industry, parking and electric vehicle (EV) charging technology provider Flash has secured $85 million in debt financing to form a new special purpose vehicle (SPV) designed to offer clients an expanded range of flexible payment options.
Details of the arrangement were provided exclusively to Parking Today by Flash, which plans to publicly announce the formation of the SPV on Monday, September 9.
An SPV is a “financing structure that allows us to offer what we call hardware-as-a-service payments or more flexible pricing to our clients at scale,” said Chris Donus, the president of Flash, in an interview with Parking Today. Effective immediately, the SPV and its financing options apply to all technology and hardware offered by the company, Donus said.
“Asset owners and operators have a myriad of budgetary and deployment preferences — the payment options we can now extend through the SPV will allow customers to join the Flash platform on terms that work best for them,” Donus said in a statement provided to Parking Today. “Innovation in payment options is as critical as platform innovation in pursuit of our vision for the parking industry’s transformation in light of the scale and momentum we’re on pace to achieve,” he said.
“Flash’s payment options allow clients to select amongst flexible monthly payment plans that suit their budgets, regardless of scale, asset type, or configuration,” according to the company’s statement.
Industry First
The result of many months of legal and financial negotiations, Flash’s SPV represents a first for parking, Donus said. “This is the first time this has been deployed in this industry,” he said. “We’re super excited to bring something innovative to market.”
Historically, parking equipment has been sold on a one-time capital expenditure basis, Donus noted. However, a “combination” of market events has convinced Flash that the parking industry is open to a new purchasing model, he said. “You have new entrants coming in with new pricing models and you potentially have stress in the commercial real estate industry.”
Together with higher interest rates, these factors have made market actors “a little more sensitive about how they deploy their capital,” Donus said. “People are more open to thinking about alternative ways of buying [parking] equipment.”
With the SVP in place, Flash is able “on a more capital-efficient basis to go at a much more significant scale and offer these flexible pricing options to our clients,” Donus explained. “We’re happy if they want to buy the equipment. We’re happy if they want to utilize flexible payments under the SPV. It’s really whichever they would like. We want to meet those customers wherever they are in their buying cycle. The [SVP] allows us to just do this, at more scale, in a more capital-efficient way.”
More Funding Likely
Provided by the independent specialist infrastructure credit fund Vantage Infrastructure, the funding can be increased up to $100 million. “We think that is probable to be done within the next 30 to 90 days,” Donus said.
For Flash, the partnership with Vantage Infrastructure is especially rewarding, because the company has expertise in infrastructure “with a focus on electrification,” Donus said. “We see this vision in the future of this parking and charging ecosystem coming together for drivers.”
“We’re pleased to support Flash with a tailored financing solution that enables their team to continue to meet and exceed their clients’ need for better transport related infrastructure,” said Nick Cleary, a senior partner at Vantage, in the statement provided by Flash. “This is a great example of the opportunity to upgrade and transform proven traditional infrastructure that saves time and costs for drivers and help build out the EV charging network.”
Evercore served as Flash’s exclusive financial advisor on the deal, while Cadwalader, Wickersham, and Taft LLP provided legal counsel to Flash. Steptoe LLP acted as counsel to Vantage.
Jay Landers is editor-in-chief of Parking Today magazine.
