AI startup Metropolis, biggest parking lot network in U.S., raises $1.6 billion for major retail expansion
Metropolis, which uses AI and computer vision to identify vehicles and take parking lot payments without any physical transaction, has raised $1.6 billion in combined debt and equity in a new fundraising round at a $5 billion valuation.
Already the largest parking lot network in the U.S., handling more than 7% of licensed drivers (nearly 20 million people) across over 4,000 locations, the Santa Monica, California-based company is planning to use the capital for a major expansion across the retail sector, including gas stations and quick-service restaurant drive-thru windows, as well as into hotels and office buildings.
“With this new capital, we’re continuing to scale our platform and forge the foundation of the Recognition Economy, building a new paradigm for how AI is deployed in the real world,” said Alex Israel, CEO and co-founder of Metropolis, in the deal announcement.
The $1.6 billion capitalization includes a $1.1 billion senior secured loan and $500 million in Series D equity funding, led by new investor LionTree. Additional investors included Eldridge, SoftBank, DFJ, Tekne Capital, Vista and BDT & MSD Partners’ affiliated credit funds. It’s the largest round that the company has raised across its $2 billion in deals not specifically tied to an acquisition — Metropolis took parking lot operator SP Plus private in 2024, the largest private M&A deal of 2024. The company doubled the debt it was able to raise since its last credit market deal in 2024 in a new financing led by J.P. Morgan, which the company attributed to its expanding gross margins.
“Metropolis is demonstrating that AI can be thoughtfully commercialized at real-world scale,” said Ramin Arani, head of investments at LionTree, in the deal announcement.
Metropolis ranked No. 13 on the 2025 CNBC Disruptor 50 list.
Metropolis
Any driver that has used a Metropolis parking lot knows that the payment can be conducted with no waiting, no tickets, machines, credit cards, or apps. The company’s proprietary computer vision platform recognizes a “vehicle fingerprint” based on their unique characteristics. Users do have to first set up an account in the company’s app or on its website with basic profile information including a license plate number, though its technology is not limited to license plate scanning.
The company says it has been growing by one million members per month and sees a total addressable market of at least 50 million individuals. Across its current operations, Metropolis is handling $5 billion in annual transactions.
“The physical world remains hopelessly analog,” said Courtney Fukuda, chief integration officer and co-founder of Metropolis, at the recent CNBC AI Summit in Nashville. “We started by fixing parking, partially because it’s ubiquitous and because it’s a nightmare,” she added.
As the company expands into retail locations including fueling and drive-thrus, it will be focused on a software-as-a-service model, with retail and real estate owners benefitting from offering the technology to their consumers. “We’re not going to go and buy 1,000 McDonald’s and suddenly franchise McDonald’s with our computer vision technology,” Fukuda said. “We’re going to be licensing our technology to those operators.”
While the parking lot experience is more limited to making the payment transaction frictionless, Metropolis is betting that as it moves deeper across retail and the physical world, its ability to gather and analyze data on individuals will lead to a level of personalization that consumers prefer and that increases revenue opportunities for businesses, ushering in a “post-device world.”
“We know where people are actually moving in the real world, and we can start to put together essentially a member graph of their physical world footprint and insights,” Fukuda said, data analysis that will be valuable to commercial real estate owners, and hotel companies. “It gives them information about what used to be a black box and used to just be kind of cash collections,” Fukuda added.
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Correction: Courtney Fukuda is chief integration officer and co-founder of Metropolis. An earlier version of this article misspelled her name.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
Snap stock surged 13% on Thursday after announcing a $400 million deal with Perplexity AI and releasing its third-quarter financial results.
The company said that it will be integrating Perplexity’s artificial intelligence-powered search engine directly into the Snapchat app.
As part of the agreement, Perplexity is set to pay the social media platform $400 million over one year “through a combination of cash and equity,” according to Snap’s letter to investors.
The social media company expects to start seeing revenue from the deal in 2026.
“Snap’s strategic partnership with Perplexity AI represents a meaningful step toward building out alternative revenue streams, as similar to Pinterest, large advertisers in the US seem to be pulling back from advertising on the platform,” Deutsche’s Benjamin Black said in a note Thursday.
Snap posted solid third-quarter results, reporting revenue of $1.51 billion, which beat LSEG estimates of $1.49 billion.
The company’s daily active users increased 8% year over year to 477 million, surpassing StreetAccount’s projection of 476 million.
Snapchat 3 month stock chart.
Cheng Xin | Getty Images
Duolingo‘s stock cratered 27% on lighter-than-expected guidance as the language learning platform zeroed in on user growth in lieu of near-term monetization.
“We have made a slight shift over the last quarter in how we invest, and we’re investing a lot more in long-term things because we see that as such a big opportunity ahead of us,” CEO and co-founder Luis von Ahn told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.
For the current quarter, Duolingo expects bookings to range between $329.5 million and $335.5 million, falling short of a $344.3 million estimate from FactSet. Adjusted EBITDA was forecasted to range between $75.4 million and $78.8 million, versus the $80.5 million expected.
Duolingo grew paid subscribers to 11.5 million and topped the 11.38 million expected by StreetAccount. But daily and monthly active users came up short at 50.5 million and 135.3 million, respectively. Analysts polled by StreetAccount had forecasted 51.2 million daily and 137.4 million monthly users.
Over the last several months, Duolingo has implemented a slew of new artificial intelligence tools, including an interactive video call feature to try and lure more paying subscribers. The company has also rolled out more language courses in record time with the help of AI.
“There are experiments that put monetization and user growth at odds, and part of my job has been, always, arbitrating between these two,” von Ahn told CNBC.
Over the last few months, he said the company has been “really shifting that trade off to be much more towards user growth.”
Duolingo’s revenues grew 41% during the quarter to $272 million, surpassing the $260 million estimate from analysts polled by LSEG. Total bookings jumped 33% year over year to about $282 million and also beat estimates.
Net income grew to $292.2 million, or $5.95 per share, up from $23.4 million, or 49 cents per share in the year-ago period. The company said net income was helped by a one-time tax income benefit of $222.7 million.
Duolingo also boosted its full-year revenue guidance to between $1.0275 billion and $1.0315 billion. That’s up from its previous guidance of $1.01 billion to $1.02 billion.
Duolingo one day stock chart.
Technology
Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Reynolds-backed password manager tops $400 million in ARR on AI tail winds
Ryan Reynolds (L), Scarlett Johansson (C), and Matthew McConaughy
Reuters
Cybersecurity startup 1Password, by Ryan Reynolds, Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson, has topped more than $400 million in annual recurring revenue, the company said Thursday.
“We believe we’re at a pretty significant inflection point in our journey,” CEO David Faugno told CNBC. “We’re set up for this next wave of disruption, which I think is an even bigger opportunity for us.”
Faugno said he expects the company to surpass a billion dollars in ARR over the next “several years,” benefiting from a shift in the threat landscape due to artificial intelligence and more complex protection needs.
In 2023, 1Password announced that it had surpassed $250 million in ARR.
AI innovation has accelerated demand for better cybersecurity tools to counteract sophisticated and complex cyberattacks. Big deals from Palo Alto Networks and Alphabet, and initial public offerings from Netskope and SailPoint have also put the sector in the spotlight.
Toronto-based 1Password was founded in 2005 and counts IBM, Perplexity AI, Salesforce and the Golden State Warriors among its customers, and it’s also signed a multiyear deal with Formula 1 team Oracle Red Bull Racing. The company says it secures more than 1.3 billion human and machine credentials and works with 180,000 business customers.
Additionally, 1Password on Thursday announced it is bringing on former ChargePoint and Barracuda Networks executive Michael Hughes. Former Qualtrics and SAP executive John Torrey will join as chief business officer.
Faugno said both executives complement the company’s strategy to lure larger enterprise customers.
Over the last year, 1Password has undergone a major C-suite shake-up.
Longtime leader Jeff Shiner, who ran 1Password for 13 years, transitioned into executive chair of the board in July. Faugno, who had been promoted to co-CEO a few months earlier, took over the role solely at that time. Faugno joined 1Password in 2023 as president and operating chief.
To date, 1Password has raised about $950 million and is valued at $6.8 billion, according to Pitchbook data. Other investors include actor Justin Timberlake, comedian Trevor Noah, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz and investment firm Iconiq, according to Pitchbook.
Faugno told CNBC that the company is weighing a possible IPO in 2026 or 2027, but isn’t “rushing out to go public.” He said 1Password remains focused on providing the best tools for its customers.
“We control our own destiny,” he said. “From a profitability perspective, we have investors that are playing the long game with us.”
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