Spintly has created the world’s first BLE-mesh enabled Access control platform: Rohin Parkar
Rohin Parkar is the co-founder & CEO of Spintly which was started in December 2017 along with Malcolm Dsouza the co-founder & CTO. Rohin started his career as a scientist working at Bhabha Atomic Research Center in 2002.
In 2005 Rohin moved to the USA and worked there for tech giants like Motorola, Nokia and Broadcom. He was involved in developing key wireless technologies ranging from 2G to 5G and also worked on Wifi and IoT technologies. Rohin returned to India in 2017 after spending 12 years in the USA with a goal of building a technology focused product company in India. Rohin and Malcolm have built Spintly ground up as a fully vertically integrated company which develops both hardware and software.
They hired fresh talent from Engineering colleges in Goa and trained them to be able to develop innovative IoT products. INCUBEES found out how Rohin wants to build Spintly into a global leader in the wireless access control space.
INCUBEES: Tell us about your product?
ROHIN PARKAR: Spintly is the world’s first truly wireless, BLE-mesh powered smart access control platform. Spintly provides hassle-free, touch-less, mobile-based door access and attendance management solution for enterprise, hospitality and residential applications. We believe in simplifying access control by eliminating more than 90 per cent of the wired infrastructure needed for access control systems, thus saving more than 70 per cent in labour and infrastructure cost. Spintly has created a paradigm shift in the access control world and is leading this global transformation of using IoT for access control.
We have a range of different smart products such as
SMACC UNO: Mobile & card based Access control reader for indoor applications
Smart Door Lock: Mobile & card based door locks for hospitality, residential and Coliving applications
BLE Gateway: The central controller device which wirelessly connects to all the devices and to the cloud.
3-in-1 Access: Fingerprint, Mobile & card based Access control reader for indoor applications
SMACC-OUT: Mobile & card based Access control reader for outdoor applications
INCUBEES: What makes your product unique and what competition do you see in India and globally?
ROHIN PARKAR: Unlike other competitors, we are not using Weigand or OSDP protocol in our access control system which is entirely dependant on using wiring infrastructure. We at Spintly, have created the world’s first BLE-mesh enabled Access control platform which not only allows users to unlock doors with their smartphone but also eliminates the wired infrastructure needed for access control deployments. And that’s what makes us apart from the rest of competitors.
We see a healthy competition In India as well as the global market for our products and solutions as the world is preparing to go contactless to create a safe and healthy environment.
INCUBEES: What are the challenges you see in the market at this point of time?
ROHIN PARKAR: No Business can grow without facing challenges. At present, we see there is a huge demand for our products/solutions, every customer wants to deploy contactless access control solutions at their premises to avoid catching COVID-19 infection and create a safe and healthy work environment. One of the challenges we are facing is being able to scale up our production amidst COVID-19 to be able to cater to the customer demands.
INCUBEES: Tell us about your team and what inspires them?
ROHIN PARKAR: At Spintly, we have an amazing team of more than 30 employees. Our entire team is passionate about learning new skills and building a product that helps improve human efficiency. Our products have been developed by a team of integrative thinkers led by visionary leaders. We firmly believe that quality and innovation does not have to come at a high cost. With this principle Spintly aims to develop high quality, innovative and cost effective products and solutions. Our employees’ inspiration is the technologies they get to learn on each passing day, the unbiased work culture, friendly management and much more.
INCUBEES: Where do you see your product/service reaching in the next five-years?
ROHIN PARKAR: We had started off in December 2017, and throughout the entire journey we have seen a massive growth especially in 2020 after the outbreak of COVID-19. Our product has become the need of the hour for every workplace to ensure safety. So, the future looks clear and luminous for us since it focuses on simplifying and bringing a great level of convenience to users. Currently we have presence in two countries namely India and USA. In India our focus has been on the West and South Indian market and we are looking to expand our operation throughout the Indian market. Similarly, for the US market, we have started serving in the North American market and looking to grow rapidly in the US market in the next five years. Also, we have been seeing some positive responses coming for the Middle East countries.
INCUBEES: Do you have plans to raise funding to grow your business or allow your business to organically grow?
ROHIN PARKAR: In the month of March 2020 we got seed funding from Saltwater Venture Sparks + Angels for $ 250,000 and soon we are planning to raise another round funding to grow our business.
INCUBEES: What are the challenges you face as a startup?
ROHIN PARKAR: One of the major challenges we faced was recently when COVID-19 struck India and our business got adversely affected. We quickly were able to change our messaging to a contact-less system and were able to attract customer attention. But for 2-3 months going without revenues was really a difficult phase in the business. Every start-up faces these challenges of having a good cash flow so it can stay afloat towards becoming profitable. One of the other challenges we face is the lack of a manufacturing ecosystem in the country due to prolonged dependency on China. So we are building that infrastructure and capability ground-up to enable us to deliver our products in the future.
