After 11 years in business, Waterloo-based eleven-x is proving that slow and steady (with a lot of sensors) wins the race.

Founded in 2014, eleven-x has grown from its early days at the Accelerator Centre into a North American leader in smart parking solutions. According to co-founder and CEO Dan Mathers, the journey has been one worth celebrating.

"I feel great. There are so many great tech companies in the region and a great ecosystem. To see the whole community celebrate our success has been fantastic," said Mathers. "I’m super grateful to my co-founders, super grateful to the team at eleven-x. Our investors have been fantastic. This is the greatest place on the planet to build a tech startup."

From startup to smart city staple

Best known for its smart parking platform, eXactpark, eleven-x helps municipalities and campuses reduce congestion and cut emissions by providing real-time data on parking availability. Its patented SPS-X sensors boast 99.7 per cent accuracy and 10 years of battery life. This makes parking a lot less painful for drivers and a lot more efficient for city planners.

"What we do is we help solve traffic in cities,” Mathers said. “We help city planners manage their traffic policies and parking policies to reduce traffic congestion, reduce greenhouse gases, improve the quality of life for residents and visitors, and improve the city's brand. And we help drivers quickly and easily find available parking near their destination.”

That mission has paid off with some major wins.

Record-breaking projects

“This year, we won an 11,000-sensor deal at a major U.S.-based university,” said Mathers. “It’s a very significant project.”

It’s the largest college campus smart parking initiative in North America. The parking sensors are being installed across the university’s almost 20,000-acre campus, along with more than 40 digital signs and eleven-x’s eXactnav mobile app to guide drivers to open spots in real time.  The University will be able to improve parking policy, reduce congestion and plan smarter for the future.

In Arlington County, Virginia, eleven-x led one of the largest municipal smart parking deployments in North America, installing close to 5,000 sensors across their major commercial corridors. The project received a Smart 20 Award from Smart Cities Connect for its innovative approach to curbside management and data-driven policy design.

The system provides real-time occupancy and wayfinding for drivers via digital signs and eleven-x’s eXactnav app. It also helps city staff test pricing models and create better parking policies without collecting personal data.

Advice from the trenches

Looking back on more than a decade of building and scaling startups, Mathers offers some hard-earned wisdom.

“There are really, really great days. There are some pretty tough days,” he said. “But if you remind yourself that if you work hard, you’re going to make your own luck. And if you’ve got a great team, great co-founders, great support systems like you do in Waterloo Region, you’re going to get through the tough times.”

As a former venture capitalist and mentor at Communitech, Mathers has seen a lot of founders come and go. He says culture is what sets eleven-x apart.

“We respect one another and support one another. We leave no person behind,” he said. “We’ve worked hard to support each other and make building a successful company  a reality.”

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