TransitScreen Raises $600,000 To Bring Bright, Shiny Screens To Bus Stops And Subways

In the future we will all wear amazing silver underpants and look at our incoming bus and subway transfers on a screen from TransitScreen. Created by a lone entrepreneur with a dream and some LCDs, TransitScreen is a sort of timetable for mass transit. However, these things can sit in multiple places including in the lobby of your favorite building where they display train times, information, and ads. Think of it as one of those in-elevator ad screens, only useful.

Founders Ryan Croft and Matt Caywood have just raised a $600,000 angel round with a group of unnamed VCs in transportation, real estate, and finance. The goal is to use the money to roll out more screens worldwide and to expand the system to Latin America and the Middle East. The company has 40 paying customers right now and is cash-flow positive.

“Everyone is a commuter in some shape or form. Whether by bus, train, bike, foot or car, we are all commuters. TransitScreen is creating a worldwide standard for real-time transportation information that will be accessible wherever someone is looking for it,” said Croft.

By working directly with cities, universities, and employers the company is able to bring in multiple points of data about various train and bus lines and even track vehicles as they move through the streets. You can even add bike sharing and weather information to the screens for folks who are heading down to the lobby and want to make sure they can get a lift or know if they need an umbrella.

“We commercialized TransitScreen from a successful civic technology pilot project in the Washington DC area. We were convinced that people can make smarter and more sustainable decisions when real-time information is absolutely convenient and simple to use, and worked to make the same information available across all platforms including digital signage, desktop, mobile, and our SmartWalk digital projections,” said Croft. The company has already launched the project at major universities and is hitting hotels and office buildings soon. While the screens can’t tell you where to get your silver underwear cleaned, they are pretty cool.

Parkmerced SF TransitScreen 2014