Aparkado is Start-up Champ 2022

The competition focused on mobility and logistics. The Cologne-based start-up impressed the jury with an app for truck drivers.

Cologne-based start-up Aparkado won the Start-up Champs 2022 final in Hamburg. Kölnbusiness Wirtschaftsförderung initiated the supra-regional competition for the third time together with Berlin Partner, Hamburg Invest, Munich Startup and Werk1. This year, the focus was on mobility and logistics.

Aparkado impressed the jury with an app for truck drivers that is designed to help make routes more efficient. Drivers can use the app to call up information on free parking spaces and ramps on their routes. "We want to ensure that drivers park, load and live better and winning the Start-up Champs gives us a boost to get closer to this goal," says Roland Moussavi, co-founder of Aparkado. The winners can look forward to prizes such as participation in Slush - Europe's largest start-up event - or SXSW 2023, a combination of festival, trade exhibition and conference in the USA.

Moussavi founded the Cologne-based company in 2020 together with Philipp Henn. With the help of satellite images, the technology recognizes free and occupied parking spaces next to the freeway. An algorithm then distributes the trucks to free parking spaces. In the future, the founders want to integrate further functions into the app, such as a fuel card for paying at the filling station.