Doncha just love it when actual facts on the ground prove you right. Heh. I do
In the blog below, I posited that parking tech companies may find themselves in the sights of major auto companies for assimilation. And then, just today, Dish Network announced that it had purchased Parkifi, a sensor based data collection company from Denver. They said:
“I think 80 percent of the ParkiFi team’s experience goes beyond parking,” said Dish executive vice president Tom Cullen, who oversees the Douglas County company’s wireless business. “Once we started talking, our research showed that parking is a big market and an adequate opportunity for us to compete in. But beyond parking, there’s a number of other applications and verticals that internet of things can address and their expertise from design, development and IP development can influence or extend into those other (areas).” Find the entire story here.
Wow – Twenty Two-billion-dollar Dish Network finds that parking is an industry pool in which it can swim. OK it’s not an auto company, but the theory is the same.
I’m asked frequently if the parking industry is in the midst of consolidation. When we think of that we consider the legacy companies (and that’s happening – consider T2 and Parkingsoft) but more than not its technology companies that are being rolled up. Parkmobile, PaybyPhone, Parkme, ParkX, and now Parkifi to list just a few.
The tech industry has hundreds of billions to invest, and parking has young, bright, companies that are just waiting for a potential buyer.
As Dish noted above, parking is a big market, but also the technology being developed can be extended to activities beyond parking. Iot, (that’s Internet of Things, luddites) as much as I hate the term, is real. And all the companies I listed above are hip deep in it.
Are you a tech company in the parking industry? If I were you, I would be looking over my shoulder. This might not be a bad thing, but remember that the first thing that happens is, for whatever reason, the founders and innovators leave.
Do you think this ‘roll up’ is over? Guess again, my friend. Its only beginning.
JVH
