This Sydney-based startup is disrupting the $2.5 billion Aussie traditional parking sector

Sydney-based property technology startup, BaseUp, is the first platform in
Australia to create a smart parking technology solution for large tenants and landlords in the commercial property sector.

The platform is making parking easier for companies and their employees and changing the way employees access office parking.

Identifying a changing workplace including casual parking, mobile working and childcare pickups, BaseUp provides a suite of solutions that solve one of commercial real estate’s biggest problems – underutilized parking and a lack of flexibility for employees.

Building on the company’s success in 2018, BaseUp has secured a number of global and local clients including Insurance Australia Group (IAG), Schneider Electric, Charter Hall and Brookfield Properties.

The co-founders are excited to close their recent $1 million Series A investment which will see the company expand rapidly including hiring technology, operations and sales staff and investment into R&D projects.

How does BaseUp work?

BaseUp’s platform is made up of three pieces of technology all custom configured to meet the requirements of the tenant and landlord.

Their cloud-based management dashboard allows administrators to configure how they want their car park to be managed, the staff App lets employees self-manage the parking spaces available to them, and BaseUp’s access hardware enables drivers to come and go using Bluetooth.

BaseUp’s platform gives tenants and landlords the data and functionality required to introduce shared parking by facilitating multiple employees’ coordinated access to a single bay or group of spaces. This increases utilisation, frees up spaces for new uses, and makes parking available to the largest group of staff possible.

BaseUp’s platform has been designed to provide these benefits while automating the management typically required by tenants and landlords to run a car park.

Co-Founders, Jack Perkins, Alex Peck and Peter Carey found a gap in the market with traditional parking models and saw an opportunity to transform the commercial parking sector. The three knew they could make an impact by introducing technology to the way office parking was used.

“While working on the BaseUp business model, we discovered that CBD tenants spend $2.5 billion on office parking each year,” said Jack.

“The opportunity for BaseUp to disrupt tired and inflexible systems is enormous. We found that on average, only 65 per cent of the office parking spaces are utilised during the working week. This represents over $800m in wasted spending on parking annually for companies,” he said.

Alex adds, “This underutilisation and inflexibility means that 35 per cent of spaces in office car parks are empty during the work week and almost 150,000 drivers are using paid commercial car parks instead of their own office parking.

“This means that employees spend almost $1 billion annually on parking outside their own company. This is a lost opportunity for businesses but a problem that BaseUp is solving.”

What do the startup’s partners and collaborators think about it?

IAG, Australia’s largest general insurer, first partnered with BaseUp through IAG’s Firemark Labs incubator. Since then IAG has introduced BaseUp as an employee benefit nationally as part of its ongoing support for flexible working.

James Orchard, IAG’s Executive General Manager of Innovation says, “IAG and BaseUp’s relationship has evolved from our innovation incubator into a business partnership that has enabled us to adopt and implement new technology and provide a new form of flexibility for our employees.

“Flexible parking has been welcomed with open arms and we’ve seen 100 per cent utilisation at our Sydney CBD and Melbourne CBD offices in the past six months. It has helped us create a new flexible working benefit for our people, while centralising and automating our parking management.

“Working closely with BaseUp has strengthened our willingness to experiment with technology and demonstrates first-hand the benefits of adopting new technologies. We look forward to working together to support our Mobility initiatives now and in the future,” said James.

BaseUp client and one of Australia’s leading property groups, Charter Hall, introduced BaseUp to tenants to provide a new tenant amenity, improve the building’s experience through technology and increase value.

The company is investing to ensure they are at the forefront of innovation and technology, better connect the company to tenants and provide them with leading workplaces experiences for today and the future.

Craig Rodgers, Charter Hall’s Office Innovation Lead says, “It’s exciting to see an Australian tech company like BaseUp deliver technology that enhances tenant customer experience and unlocks greater efficiency in car parking environments.

“For our tenant customers who are using BaseUp technology, we have seen value unlocked by better utilisation of car parking spaces combined with easy management.

“We are focused on identifying emerging technology that help us to unlock value, deliver efficiency and provide great experiences for customers.”