Mentha Technologies: The makers of a Parking Lot Solution with NFC enabled device
Mentha Technologies is a Bangalore-based company founded in April 2011 by three professionals, Ramesh Ponnuru, Makam Nagendra and Ramesh Senthuraman. Together they have more than 70 years of experience in the IT world and have worked with some of the biggest MNCs across the globe. “The primary motivation for this startup was to design products and solutions which address the growing mobile and cloud markets around the world,” says Makam.
The Indian market is one of the fastest in adopting smart phone technology which encouraged the team to create value add mobile applications/products which use NFC, GPS, QR Codes, OCR, Image processing, and address the needs of large enterprises.
A parking lot solution with NFC enabled device
The idea behind this is to reduce congestion leading to the boom barrier that controls the entry and exit to the mall parking which is a problem during special events, weekend and movie times. “With the NFC parking solution there is no need for a boom barrier. Customers can drive up and park at the slots they find and a parking attendant nearby will issue an NFC card with the date/time and vehicle number encrypted on the card using this application. All this takes only a few seconds,” says Makam. The solution is being piloted at one of the largest malls in Coimbatore.
With this solution, a customer at a shopping mall can choose to pay at any kiosk by showing the card. A grace period of some time is provided for the customer to exit. Random checks at the exit are made to ensure that the customer has paid or an attendant can man the collection card at the exit and determine if the parking fee has been paid.
The NFC card can also be used by merchants in the mall to advertise by placing stickers on the card. The NFC card can also be used as a debit card for frequent visitors to the mall.
Feel safe security
Feel Safe Security is another solution from Mentha Technologies that is available as a hosted and a cloud solution for large enterprises and apartment complexes. Feel Safe Security provides the power of mobile technology to provide security agencies with features to manage their operations. FSS is under trial by the Fern Apartment group.
Market Strategy and the road ahead
The trio has put together a team of 10 engineers and aim to break even in the next 18 months. Talking about the market strategy, Makam stresses on the following points:
- Diverse product offerings to keep up with the changing landscape
- Smart and effective market promotion
- Effectively partner and deliver solutions
- Target Tier 2 and 3 cities
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