Daniel Battaglia was excited to meet with NRMA as a potential investor in his start-up. Now he regrets that decision and plans to take the company to court.
PICTURE this: a small-time entrepreneur dreams up a plan to solve one of life’s perpetual frustrations — trying to find a car park.
He tinkers with the idea for a few months, painstakingly planning and learning the ins and outs of business to build his start up.
After a successful launch and a lot of learning, revising and developing his business, a massive company approaches him with an interest to invest. Cue dreams of dollar signs and early retirement.
Only, after a meeting and some email exchanges with the big shots, the phone stops ringing. Emails stop being returned and messages are left with no reply.
Then, months later, a newspaper article: “Auto industry giant to launch innovative parking plan”. And it’s a plan that sounds very familiar.
This is pretty much the situation that’s prompted a Sydney entrepreneur to mount a legal battle against motoring giant NRMA, claiming they nicked his business plan to introduce cheap and easy parking.
NRMA has denied the claims and says it is prepared to “defend the integrity of our good name”.
Daniel Battaglia is planning to take legal action against auto industry giant NRMA.Source:Supplied
Daniel Battaglia launched Parking Made Easy in 2011 after seeing a gap in the digital market.
The idea was to connect property owners across Australia sitting on empty parking spots, driveways and garages, to drivers seeking a place to park. Owners are then able to rent out their car-free spaces via the online platform Mr Battaglia developed.
It’s like Airbnb for car parks, and offers a similar service to fellow start-ups Parkhound and Divvy.
Since launching, his site has satisfied more than half a million customers and he now plans to expand to encourage commercial, council, university and other property owners to get on board and create “the leading digital marketplace for parking”.
After Parking Made Easy received some media attention thanks to its successful start up status, Mr Battaglia says he was approached by NRMA’s strategy team in March 2014.
Following an initial meeting with NRMA’s investment and strategy teams discussing a possible investment, Mr Battaglia and NRMA again made contact in March this year.
Mr Battaglia told news.com.au a request from an NRMA staff member prompted to hand over what he describes as “sensitive and confidential information”.
He sent through a detailed business model and plan, budget forecasts, and a five-year outlook.
Mr Battaglia signed off the email “Any more questions, please feel free to let me know and feedback is always welcome”, but that was where the exchange ended.
Parking Made Easy was launched in 2011.Source:Supplied
The start-up founder made a number of attempts to contact NRMA in the days and weeks that followed, but, he said, never received a response.
He had all but given up on the auto industry giant until he recently discovered NRMA was launching a project that he thought sounded suspiciously familiar.
Just last week NRMA announced an antidote to what it describes as Sydney’s “parking crisis”.
A news article published on the project said NRMA intended to “mobilise its 2.5 million members to help free up unused spaces in driveways, garages, and other spots near train stations”.
NRMA’s plan touted benefits for its members including “the opportunity to earn income from leasing spots to other motorists”, and “helping solve a growing headache for commuters and transport officials alike”.
Mr Battaglia told news.com.au he was “surprised” and felt “deceived” when he learnt of NRMA’s new parking scheme, which he says is practically identical to his, as detailed in the documents he shared with the company.
“I feel that they’ve misled and deceived me, and engaged in anti-competitive behaviour,” he said.
“It’s a decision I made to leave my banking career behind. I haven’t had a wage, and I’m not complaining about it, that’s my choice. But this isn’t why I did it, to have my intellectual property stolen and all my hard work taken advantage of.”
Mr Battaglia said his business had changed “dramatically” in the five years since he launched.
“The secret to a successful start-up is to build, measure, and learn. I’ve been doing that. It’s not just a once off website that I’ve built and it’s just grown. It’s been a very scientific process that’s taken a lot of effort and time in building,” he said.
“To realise they’re (NRMA) moving in to the market, and taking advantage of my experience and what I’ve learnt, that’s why I felt misled and deceived.”
NRMA is looking to address parking problems, particularly around train stations where commuters often park illegally.Source:News Corp Australia
In a statement to news.com.au, NRMA said: “NRMA has long advocated for innovative solutions to make it easier for motorists to find parking spaces.
“We remain committed to P2P parking and have been in discussions with several providers of P2P parking services to solve key pain points for our members. Given this, it is quite possible we will partner with one or more of these organisations. Any information provided confidentially by these operators has purely been for the purpose of evaluating the strength of the various businesses.”
Mr Battaglia has also received a response from an NRMA executive denying NRMA has in any way acted improperly.
“NRMA takes such accusations very seriously and we are prepared to defend the integrity of our good name should such accusations appear in public,” the executive wrote.
Mr Battaglia is prepared to fight too.
He has engaged a legal team and is currently consulting with lawyers to formulate his argument.
While he realises it will be a David and Goliath battle, Mr Battaglia told news.com.au he’s not going to give up.
“I believe they acted in bad faith, were misleading and deceptive and there are issues around intellectual property and trade secrets,” he said.
“They approached me as an investor and got all my sensitive and confidential information from lots of research and development.
“For them to pose as an investor and use my intellectual property for their own business is wrong.”
