Uber is in talks to acquire part of a startup that offered to valet park your car on demand

Uber is in advanced talks to acquire part of the team behind Luxe, one of San Francisco's parking-on-demand startups, a source familiar with the discussions told Business Insider.

Luxe is looking to sell part of its engineering team and some of the technology behind its on-demand parking business. CEO Curtis Lee would not join Uber as part of the proposed deal, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.

Uber declined to comment. Luxe did not respond to a request for comment.

Known for its blue-jacketed valets, Luxe raised more than $75 million - including $50 million from car rental company Hertz - to expand its service.

The company initially planned to offer its service on-demand. In much the same way that they'd call an Uber, customers could tap on Luxe's app when they needed a car parked. Luxe would then track their location as they arrived at their destination, whether it was at a restaurant for an evening dinner or at an office for a regular workday.

But that business model faltered as the company started buying up parking garages and becoming more of a traditional valet service that operated outside businesses. It eventually shuttered its on-demand parking app and said it would be regrouping the company for a different parking service that it planned to announce later this summer.

Luxe isn't the first on-demand company to face challenges as it tried to scale. Zirx shut down its consumer parking service to focus on enterprise customers, while another startup, Carbon, shut down entirely in 2015.