By ANDREW MOORE
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
With so many things connected to the Internet today, it’s sometimes surprising when certain machines get left behind. In this case, it’s our old friend the vending machine. To this day, many vending machine owners have to guess when to go out and refill machines and hope the machine doesn’t break down between checkups.
Parlevel Systems is creating a solution for this issue with the Parlevel Box – CEO and founder Luis Gonzalez got the idea for the startup when he heard a vending business owner complaining about not knowing what was happening with his machines.
The Parlevel Box attaches to a vending machine’s data exchange port and tracks multiple data points for the machine’s operation. This includes items currently in the machine, total number of sales, how many times the machine has been opened, and the current cash balance. The Box can also tell if the machine is malfunctioning and where the malfunction is located. If the machine does not have a data exchange port, Palevel Systems can do a retrofit.
Vendors can access all this data on an online dashboard which tracks each machine on a map. The dashboard tracks each machine over time and will let owners know what sells best and worst at what locations. In addition, Parlevel Systems will provide demographic analysis based on secondary sources of data and actively advise each vendor of the best places to sell both existing and new products.
Parlevel Systems is currently in the pilot phase of development and is working with three vending businesses across Texas to fine tune their product before going to market. They will finish their A round of funding in the next few days — allowing the startup to finish development and expand their team. Parlevel Systems expects to have their product on the market by October of this year. Their service will have a tiered cost system based on the number of machines tracked. The hardware component will be free of charge.
Leave a Reply