A young Sydney software entrepreneur who gained success last year for his best-selling parking app has developed a new app designed to rescue stray animals from pet shelters.

During his final year of high school last year, Brandon Cowan, 18, developed the iParkedHere iPhone app, which went on to become the No.1 top grossing app in the Lifestyle category of the iTunes app store.

Screenshots of the PetRescue app.

Now in the first year of a Bachelor of Information Technology degree at the University of Technology, Sydney, Cowan has developed an app for PetRescue, a non-profit organisation that finds new homes for lost and abandoned pets.

The PetRescue database, with which the app was built, contains over 6500 pets from shelters across Australia. The app automatically detects your state and displays listings accordingly. Users are then able to contact these shelters directly from within the app via email or telephone.