Driving Disruption for Smart Cities: Why We Invested in Miovision

Today, we at Maverix, together with our co-investors, announced a $260 million growth equity investment into Miovision, a disruptive technology company based in Kitchener, Ontario that is shaping the future of smart cities. Miovision’s technologies solve a key problem within cities by optimizing mobility solutions and transportation networks via traffic intersections.

We have known the Co-Founder and CEO of Miovision, Kurtis McBride, for over 10 years and watched him build his company from when it was a seedling of an idea. But it wasn’t until 6 years ago when we began to really understand his vision for the future — a vision that came to light during the Sidewalk Labs fiasco in Toronto. It was then when we began to understand the opportunities and pitfalls of a “smart city”. We collaborated with Miovision on a Canadian-built consortium of smart city ecosystem players and reimagined how cities could function effectively. We were also very conscious of respecting the rights and privacy of citizens and not extracting economic rents from other players in the ecosystem. That’s when we really understood how Miovision could be a linchpin of a smart city.

If there’s one topic that people can unanimously agree upon and collectively relate to, it’s that everyone hates traffic congestion. What’s frustrating is that it’s a problem that seems to be getting worse around the world. We came to appreciate how critical, complex, and archaic the current traffic solutions are and the significant opportunities for innovation in a smart city. Governments around the world are investing billions of dollars in transportation infrastructure. When you think about key voter issues at municipalities, traffic congestion and street safety usually rank among the most significant ones. Growing urbanization continues to make the problem worse. Adopting technologies at traffic intersections results in a high return on investment for municipalities — reduced traffic congestion, enhanced safety, lower carbon emissions, significant cost efficiencies, improved infrastructure planning, and increased quality of life for constituents. This is an area ripe for disruption!

Traffic intersections are based on analog technologies from the 1980s that have not changed very much over time. The most common traffic light works on a pre-set timer or uses an inductive loop system (you’ve probably noticed those coils of wire embedded in the road’s surface) that detects the presence of cars and adjusts the lights accordingly. Unfortunately, these legacy technologies do not provide municipalities with any visibility at the intersection, which prevents them from adapting to changing traffic flows, safety situations, or multi-modal transportation. There’s a distinct need for traffic management to go digital.

Miovision is at the forefront of this technological disruption as it takes advantage of the convergence of sensors, connectivity, software, networks, and cloud services. The company leverages artificial intelligence, machine learning, data analytics, and Internet-of-Things to enhance the efficiency and sustainability of traffic intersections. It optimizes the way signals change based on real-time traffic flows, and offers road safety video analytics, signal performance measurement, and more. The potential of traffic intersections becomes even more exciting when you think about a world in which smart cities and connected vehicles facilitate the adoption of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure technology, as well as autonomous vehicles, to enable real-time data collection and analysis. The traffic intersection sits at the heart of the transportation network as the data will need to be integrated into existing or new traffic management systems.

Maverix’s investment in Miovision lies at the intersection of two of our five investment themes — “Future of Live, Work, Play & Learn” and the “Future of Transportation & Logistics”. It’s an innovative, high-growth company at an inflection point in its evolution as it looks to significantly scale its operations globally. Our equity investment is being made to support the company’s highly strategic acquisition of Global Traffic Technologies, a leader in priority control and traffic-sensing systems, which will enhance Miovision’s competitive position and its value proposition to customers.

We are investing behind Kurtis, an entrepreneur who, like Maverix, is motivated to build a Canadian-based global champion. Kurtis is a maverick who has surrounded himself with a strong management team keen to impact the future of transportation. We believe Miovision is well-positioned to leverage industry tailwinds and its reputation as a disruptor to become the dominant player in the smart city.

We look forward to partnering with Kurtis and his management team, along with our co-lead partners TELUS Ventures and Export Development Canada (EDC), to transform smart cities and support a Canadian-based global champion.