The start-up company Parqio has an ambitious goal to improve urban environments through its smart garage system. Now they are getting OBOS and AF Gruppen on board as investors.
When the startup Parqio saw the light of day in 2019, they tackled a so far unsolved task - to create a digital and future-oriented solution for the administration of garages in condominiums, housing associations, commercial buildings and industrial buildings.
Two years later, the company has significant growth and several housing projects on its client list, and now includes OBOS and AF Gruppen on the ownership side through Construct Venture and OBOS Oppstart.
- Today, residents with communal garage facilities only have the option to open gates via phone call or SMS or physical remote control. We want to eliminate the garage gate as a barrier to services and new opportunities, and the ambition is to further develop the solution to also become a platform that enables efficient utilization of garage facilities, especially suitable for densely built-up areas, explains managing director Ketil Høigaard in Parqio.
The solution is as simple as it is smart; it allows users and co-owners to seamlessly open garage gates via camera or a specially developed app. A housing association with a closed garage facility that wants to use Parqio only needs an additional component from Parqio.
- The solution that is on the market now simplifies the management of the garage for the board or manager. It is further simplified by replacing the remote control with an app on the mobile phone. Players such as Defigo and Unloc take care of entrance doors with other technology, and here cooperation is already underway to integrate each other's solutions in order to cover the entire building's access needs, says Jan Fossgård, director of OBOS- and AF-owned Construct Venture.
- Through OBOS Oppstart, we want to invest in sustainable companies that contribute to digitizing the building-, construction- and property industry, to the benefit of our members and customers. We strongly believe that Parqio's technology will be able to lead to better utilization of garage facilities, especially in big cities where parking is scarse. In the long term, Parqio will also facilitate a wide range of third-party solutions, says executive director Ingunn Andersen Randai OBOS.
With these investments, Parqio will gain access to OBOS and AF's projects, and the companies' expertise. For other start-ups, this has acted as a door opener to the industry.
- We have tested the solution in several of AF and OBOS projects, with great success. The user-friendliness, potential and future ambitions of Parqio fit well into our joint portfolio of start-up companies, and we look forward to following the company further and supporting the future development of the product, says Fossgård.
Parqio's ambition is to further develop the solution in order to become a platform that enables efficient utilization of garage facilities, particularly suitable for densely built-up areas. The ambition is for the platform to contain integrations with a number of service providers, including car sharing, charging stations, home delivery and home services, which allow private individuals and property managers to utilize the capacity as they wish.
- Parqio will be able to contribute to creating more space for what we want more of in the cities, such as more and better bike lanes, green areas and pedestrian streets, explains general manager Ketil Høigaard at Parqio. In addition, we make it possible for garage administrators to utilize the area inside the garage in completely new ways - for example through new services that come to the garage or renting out available space.
The solution is developed so that the garage owner can decide whether the services are made available only to the current residents connected to the garage facilities. The platform must ensure that the garage gates are opened at the right time for those who have authorized access.
– Parqio offers a digital garage key log that makes free garage capacity available as the residents' needs develop. There is currently no solution in the market that helps to utilize the available capacity in private garage facilities. There is a huge potential here that leads in the direction of urban, green mobility and meeting future needs in a sustainable way, says Ketil Høigaard.
About Construct Venture:
With their investment in growth companies through Construct Venture, AF Gruppen and OBOS will contribute to creating a smarter and more forward-looking supplier industry within construction that also ensures the industry's competitiveness. The collaboration is industrially rooted based on smart capital, where AF and OBOS contribute, in addition to financial strength, with industry expertise, processes and well-functioning systems. The companies make their projects available for testing and developing technology concepts on a large scale.
About OBOS Startup:
Through OBOS Oppstart, OBOS invests in start-up companies that have the potential to contribute to development and growth in the building-, construction- and property-industry - with a focus on the environment and sustainability, innovation and technology. OBOS works with the companies in an early phase by using its own experience, expertise and capital. The aim of all the investments is to contribute to the development of good living and urban environments that benefit OBOS members.
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*This press release has been translated from its original language.
