From November 5-7, 2024, Estonian companies will present their latest smart city solutions at the Smart City Expo 2024 in Barcelona. This premier global event for urban innovation gathers leading providers of advanced solutions that are shaping the sustainable cities of the future.

“Barcelona’s Smart City Expo is one of Bikeep’s most important events of the year, offering key connections with city and industry leaders worldwide. With nearly 90% of our revenue from exports, the expo is a vital opportunity to expand our reach and showcase our solutions to new markets,” says Kristjan Lind, CEO and founder of Bikeep.

Bikeep provides smart bike parking technology in the cities. Their smart parking providers are the most successful in English-speaking countries, such as the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK. The network is also developing in Belgrade, Serbia, and Scandinavia. Estonia’s share fluctuates between 5 and 9 percent. Kristjan Lind is delighted that they’ve managed to climb so high among the big players with a turnover of almost two million euros.

“We’ve attended the expo for several years with invaluable support from Trade Estonia. This experience has given us vital feedback and helped build key business relationships that continue to fuel our growth,” Lind added.

Bikeep hopes to win a big procurement in a major US city

The Estonians are not the only ones on the niche market, but are one of the biggest among small players. The really big ones haven’t entered the game yet, but there are signs that they’re becoming interested. The same once happened on the electric scooter market. The results of two extremely important procurements on the US market will be revealed soon. New York and Washington DC are looking to buy their first smart parking facilities and Bikeep is taking part in the procurements.

“We’re waiting for the results. Small players grow big through procurements like this. The products of winners move so far ahead of the others that for many, development is no longer worth it. This has an immense impact.” At first, the cities will procure a smaller number of parking facilities, but their decision says what kind of solution they will choose for the city.

Estonian companies will present their smart city solutions at the Smart City Expo 2024 in Barcelona this week.

Even the initial quantity would mean a 3 to 5 times increase in turnover in both cases, but the wave that comes after it is what’s important to the Estonian company. “In the US, it’s often the case that a big city organises a procurement and others can join it,” says Lind. “The winner is announced and then the others can hop on without a procurement.”

Estonian companies present their innovative solutions

Also at the Trade Estonia stand is Bamboo Group, a telecommunication and IoT solutions provider for cities, which first took part in the expo in 2016.

“Smart City Expo is an outstanding opportunity to showcase our latest IoT and Smart Infrastructure innovations. Throughout the year, we have been developing Smart Locks Pro – a comprehensive solution designed to protect critical infrastructure. It features access management, remote monitoring of environmental sensors, intrusion detection, and real-time alerts. This event marks our first product demo in Europe,” explains Rada Ryzhykava, head of marketing at Bamboo Group.

Bamboo Group will also display controllers for optimizing street lighting efficiency and monitoring flood incidents.

Other Estonian companies at the stand include CybExer Technologies, focused on enhancing cybersecurity; Concise, which offers software solutions for cities, including an innovative port management service; BoxBox, providing eco-friendly storage solutions for urban and commercial buildings to help reduce environmental impact; and Ibiot, which develops digital solutions for waste management, including sensor-based waste container monitoring to enable need-based collection—resulting in significant CO2 savings.

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