Valerie Slepak thought she knew what company growth was — then she joined Metropolis.
The product manager said she has seen many companies expand through acquisitions. But having a venture-backed startup acquire a public company that’s more than 100 years old? That was a first.
With its acquisition of SP Plus, Slepak shared that Metropolis aims to expand access to its core product, Metropolis Vision. The solution makes it so that anyone who has paid with Metropolis once can enter any other Metropolis location and automatically begin and end their parking session by driving in and out — remitting payment through the Metropolis platform.
“Our immediate goal is to expand our platform to facilities everywhere — and the global business operations of SP Plus is making that goal a reality,” explained Co-Founder and CEO Alex Israel.
But parking is just the beginning. The company’s checkout-free technology can be applied to vehicle refueling, electric vehicle charging stations and car washes — all of which highlight the potential Metropolis has to redefine both its market opportunity and customers’ perceptions.
Integration Director Alex Goodwill believes that maintaining company health through periods of growth relies on prioritizing two key areas: people and processes. And, in order to see both of these components succeed, an organization must focus on staying ahead of the curve technologically, which is something that Goodwill has seen firsthand at Metropolis.
“Investing in next-generation solutions is the only way to build sustainable growth over long periods of time, so when I see my own organization really committed on this front — particularly on the digital experience front — it makes me incredibly excited about our capabilities in this industry and our future prospects over the long haul,” she said.
“Investing in next-generation solutions is the only way to build sustainable growth.”
To traverse the long haul, Metropolis is hiring product managers, engineers and designers who can help bring the company’s technology to thousands of new business locations — roughly 4,000 in total. To accommodate this massive portfolio, Israel added, the company is also seeking “skilled and scrappy” software and hardware engineers, parking operators and data scientists to fuel this deployment phase.
So what exactly will these future team members be working on? According to Israel, AI — and specifically computer vision — form the backbone of the company’s technology and will be the focus of the organization’s technological initiatives for the foreseeable future.
“Even after nearly 60 years of research into computer vision, the way mobility operates, for the most part, has been analog,” he said. “It’s time for that to change.”
In pursuit of change, the company will leverage its computer vision technology to continue to deliver frictionless, checkout-free experiences to drivers, offering a level of speed, ease and convenience that Israel believes is still lacking in many industries. The technology also helps members and real estate operators alike create remarkable customer experiences.
Impact By the Numbers
Metropolis’ technology has a tremendous impact on owners of real estate properties with parking facilities. According to Israel, the company’s technology often doubles these property owners’ operating revenue and reduces operating expenses by 13 percent on average. It also leads to better reporting visibility and greater yield management.
This influence is rivaled only by the number of consumers that the company serves, which equates to more than 9 million and growing by more than 120,000 per week, representing almost 4 percent of all registered drivers in North America. This number is rapidly growing as Metropolis continues deploying its technology to new locations.
To ensure this impact remains intact, the organization is building an ecosystem of organizational support functions, which encompasses its newly formed tech division, Advanced Technologies Group. Empowered by this emphasis on collaborative innovation, the company’s integration teams have been working in tandem with executive leaders to create a system for knowledge-sharing and cross-functional planning.
“These functions, among many others, are critical to allowing the organization to remain as nimble as possible,” Goodwill said.
Guided by support from the leadership team and each other, Metropolis’ technologists have put together an exciting roadmap. As a result, Slepak expressed, the company is one step closer to achieving its goal of redefining the world’s relationship with parking — and more.
“The defining result is that we’re able to further Metropolis’ technology-driven competitive advantage by delivering profit-driving results to our real estate partners and a remarkable experience to consumers,” she said.
All of these efforts, promulgated by the acquisition, reflect an unrelenting focus on reinvention. Goodwill believes now is the perfect time to reexamine what has made Metropolis successful so far and challenge assumptions about what can be accomplished moving forward.
“We’re leaving no stone unturned in our pursuit of optimized models, systems and processes,” she said.
“We’re leaving no stone unturned in our pursuit of optimized models, systems and processes.”
With stones to turn, Metropolis has arrived at a critical phase in its growth journey. In Goodwill’s mind, this transformative phase is driven equally by its proprietary platform and the team members behind the technology.
“When you combine our people with our technological infrastructure, you have the recipe needed to not only address changing needs, but thrive on them,” she said.
Both future new hires and the 22,000 who already call Metropolis their professional home get to lay the groundwork for a multifaceted future; one defined by advanced technology, new market opportunities — and untapped potential.
Israel concluded, “By deploying our computer vision technology to more than 50 million consumers and our real estate partners globally, we will enable checkout with a speed, ease and convenience that is unparalleled, even online.”
