Parchive App, which was introduced in 2020,  has been helping Nigerians search, reserve, and pay for parking space.

Parchive’s Chief Executive Officer, Oluyinka Oginni, said the difficulty he experienced in securing a parking space when he visited Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos, prompted his decision to proffer a solution.

He stated, “I frequently visit Computer Village in Ikeja, Lagos to get technology gadgets. During one of my trips in August 2018, I drove to my usual parking spot, but on arrival, it was completely occupied. I spent over 30 minutes searching the area in a bid to locate a parking spot to no avail. I eventually got stuck in traffic and finally had to go back to the previous car park I visited before finding an open spot to park.”

This frustration led to in-depth research to find a solution to reserving a parking spot before getting to his destination.

“I spent August 2018 conducting research on the best solution to resolving the parking menace in Lagos and if there was currently a solution in the market. We also carried out a market survey to ensure that this was a solution Users actually wanted and its results revealed an overwhelmingly positive response to the idea and highlighted the potential benefits users saw with the solution.

“Before 2018 elapsed, I assembled a team to develop the product and was actively involved in ensuring we got to the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage. However, I and my team still had our individual full-time jobs, and that meant we could not fully dedicate adequate resources to launch the product once it got to the MVP stage. In 2020, the team decided to dedicate all our time to complete and launch the product,” he added.

L-R, Adewale Alli, the CMO, Oluyinka Oginni, the CEO and Fola Oyewole, the CTO.

Oluyinka said Parchive’s main goal was to ensure people conveniently drive their cars in Nigeria without the hardship of a place to park.

The CEO stated that since its launch in October 2020, over 1000 parking transactions had been completed on the platform despite the fact that some people now work from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Furthermore, as part of measures to eliminate transactional and financial monitoring bottlenecks for car park operators, Parchive introduced cashless transactions as a gamechanger in an industry notorious for physical cash payments. Current car park operators on the platform can easily withdraw their earnings directly into their bank accounts, further driving digital transactions in the economy.

“We designed the application with potential users across the continent in mind ensuring that anyone with a smartphone/device can easily download the app on Google Play store or use our WebApp for IOS users, create an account, type their destination in the search bar, view car parks closest to that location, and easily reserve a parking spot. We were also excited to see that over 60% of our customers are women, with use cases ranging from paying for parking at their workplaces to making reservations when they visit the market.”

Speaking on how Parchive gets available or vacant parking spaces, Oluyinka explained that they had partnered with Local government authorities and car park providers by providing a Car park management tool that helps them manage and monitor the activities from anywhere.

“With this tool, Parchive acquires the occupancy data which gives them an exact figure of the vacant spaces available within the Car park. He further explained that the tool also enables the Car park providers the ability to accept cashless payment which saves them the burden of visiting a bank to make deposits. In addition to enabling digital transaction in a cash dominated industry, Oluyinka further added that in the last 5 weeks, they have been able to launch value-adding features that have been helping Car park providers efficiently and effectively manage their car parks”

The Chief Technology Officer, Parchive, Fola Oyewole, said Nigerians only needed to download the app on Playstore or visit www.parchive.space to create accounts.

“Once their accounts have been created, they can type their destinations in the search bar to view and reserve the closest car parks to their destinations. For Car park providers who are interested in partnership, they can also visit their website to sign-up.”