Garret Flower
Irish start-up Wayleadr, which is developing tools for "last-mile automation" for commuters, has raised $4 million in a new funding round.
Previously known as ParkOffice, Wayleadr wants to revamp the way that buildings manage traffic coming to and from their properties using machine learning.
The funding round was led by New York VC firm Third Prime.
In its original incarnation, Wayleadr provided businesses with ways to manage parking lots at their businesses.
The start-up has now expanded that remit into what it calls "last-mile automation", helping companies and employees to manage the flow of traffic to buildings, whether that is with regular or one-off access to parking spaces, and access to electric vehicle charging points on the property.
"Some large landlords started asking us to fix their residential buildings and spaces and some landlords and companies started asking us to do EV charging and carpooling," chief executive Garret Flower said.
"There's a huge amount of guesswork that happens in this last 10% of the journey, this last mile, and we think that we can eliminate all of the time associated with that now and moving into the future," he said.
Citing research from Deloitte, Wayleadr said that US drivers lose $345 a year in wasted time and fuel and increased emissions by looking for parking space and that its solution can ultimately help to reduce congestion.
Flower added that the technology is a "stepping stone" to autonomous driving where vehicles and buildings will require the right infrastructure to communicate with each other.
The start-up was founded in Ireland and has since moved much of its operations to New York as it targets the US market. Some of its clients include WeWork, CBRE and eBay.
The opportunity in the US market is "enormous", according to Flower, as employers reckon with the new way of working and the role of the office. Remote and hybrid working is very much on the menu for many companies but offices aren’t going anywhere either.
Some will come to the office every day, others will only come every other day. That creates mobility and congestion challenges for businesses when the flow of vehicles and people to buildings is more unpredictable.
"We're in this scaling mode where we have product-market fit. Before we raised money, we were a profitable SaaS company. Post Covid, people are looking for more flexibility in how they do things," Flower said.
The new funds will be used to scale operations in the US and the 20 other countries where Wayleadr has clients as well as building out a product for residential buildings.
"We’ve fundraised now to help us bring new solutions to the market. We're bringing out a residential product to help residential tenants and landlords across the world to save time there and cut down on carbon."
Wayleadr’s team is split between the US and Ireland with some remote workers scattered around the world. Flower said he expects to grow the team of 25 to around 100 within the next 18 months.
