Connected mobility

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Pitch

Optimile is a SaaS company that has developed a white-label platform for companies active in the mobility sector. We offer ‘connected mobility’. Through one single app or mobility pass we activate various mobility services. Think: bike and car sharing systems, underground parking, taxis, charging stations and public transport. Today you need a separate pass for each service. But thanks to our platform, people can now access all those different services in just one click, and all expenses are gathered into one single invoice.

 Facts & Figures

 Our own branded app, Mobiflow, with now over a few thousand users, keeps growing organically without big marketing efforts. While we are eating our own dog food, we get to know the pros and cons of our platform and learn what users expect from it.

 On the other hand,our white-labeled platform is currently being marketed by several of our clients,  to a total of 1.8 million active users. This means 1 out of 5 Belgians that are active in traffic.

Belgium’s biggest roadside assistance company Touring joined Optimile by investing in the project. Thanks to this extra capital our team was able to grow from 6 to 18 people, among which we hired 10 software engineers in the past year.

 You have to eat your own dog food. By developing our own brand, we know the pros and cons of our platform and we know what the end users expect from it.

 I founded my first company BeCharged together with my university buddy Joachim Saelens after graduation.. We quickly discovered that charging stations for electrical cars would be the future, and become a mass product in no time. Speed was key to stay ahead of the competition. Subsequently, we became a big manufacturer of charging stations.

In 2013 bad luck struck us all of a sudden. Joachim was very unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer, a battle he lost after barely six weeks[1] . He was only 29 years old. Knowing that our product would become a commodity, we decided to outsource the production of the charging stations. We ourselves started focusing more on the charge point operator platform to keep track of all charging operations in one place .

 Pivoting

 In 2010 we started focusing on the mobility of electric cars, and we’ve adjusted our strategy to be able to meet the emerging mobility needs, since then. As electric cars don’t get you everywhere, and its’ range is somehow limited, it became clear that we had to incorporate other transport systems. So we started offering a combination of several transport solutions in the same app.

 At first we only offered hardware: charging stations for electric cars. After a while, we also provided a platform to inform users about the locations of those stations and to easily process invoices. In the end, our platform became compatible with all major charging station brands. No matter what kind of charging station a customer had installed, our solution was able to mange it. Subsequently, the software became a different kind of venture.

 European reference

 Our goal is to become a European company that offers connected mobility through a mobile app that maps out the exact route based on user preferences. By focusing on connected mobility, we are not depending as much on the breakthrough of electric cars anymore. Some of our revenue also comes from other mobility methods.. This new concept will be commercialized in 2018 in Belgium and in the course of 2019 in our neighboring countries.

 This clustering of transportation modes into one single platform gives us a helicopter view of all mobility possibilities. This allows us to develop a navigation system whereby users can combine several means of transport to get to their destination. We’re the ‘Waze’ of alternative transport modes. And most of all, the user can simply book the transport by one registration via one account and with only one invoice.

 The end of King Car

Today King Car rules, but its reign isn’t  infinite. However, someone who wants to combine several transport modes today better has some advanced Google skills. We gradually let car-oriented users taste from alternative solutions while offering them a convenient life on the road. We propose them for instance to drive to a parking lot on the city outskirts where they could proceed their journey to the city center by shared bike. This way we provide an integrated solution, incorporating King Car and all its needs, while also putting forward alternative transport modes.

 Who is interested in this concept? Customers of all kinds of sectors come knocking on our door: energy & oil industries, leasing companies, banks, but also roadside assistance companies are interested in our software solutions.

 This opens the door for all kinds of organizations to become an all-round mobility supplier. The term used here is MaaS-player (Mobility as Service), offering tailor-made mobility solutions according to user needs.

 Belgium as precursor

Belgium has been at the forefront in providing connected mobility solutions to its citizens. Its open approach towards companies like ours has led to the integration of De Lijn, the national bus & tram services and NMBS, the railway services, into our mobility services. Next to these, we managed to integrate taxi companies, bike sharing services, shuttle services, car rental businesses and parking companies.

  8 Augustus weggelaten