Melbourne-based IoT company, Freestyle Technology, has signed a $5.8 million “significant contract” with the Municipality of Gochang in South Korea.
Under the terms of the deal, the company aims to provide the municipality with a complete end-to-end IoT water metering and management solution, strengthening its growing footprint in Asia.
In June last year, Freestyle Technology announced its intention to push into the Asia-Pacific market with the launch of its R&D IoT Innovation Centre in Melbourne, creating 150 tech jobs in Australia.
This new contract runs over five years, with a three year, $3 million extension potential, representing what it calls a “substantial breakthrough” in South Korea where it has also secured three IoT water metering and management trials with other municipalities.
This managed services solution, consisting of digital water meters, communications hardware and a cloud based IoT platform, will be rolled out across 24,000 residential households in Gochang before the end of this year with initial deployments commencing in May.
This involves tens of thousands of residences connected over the internet for a range of services, including data collection, remote automated meter management, billing, pressure management and leak detection.
Freestyle Technology CEO, Mohan Jesudason, said as an Australian innovator in enterprise and government IoT focused on deploying IoT solutions in the services sector of water, gas and electricity networks, this win represents Freestyle’s first significant success in water metering and management.
“It is a major achievement for an early stage Australian technology company to be punching well above its weight in highly advanced and competitive markets. It goes to the heart of the innovation and technology agendas being driven by governments in Australia and globally,” he said.
He added that a growing pipeline incorporating Japan, Thailand and Australia will see Freestyle extend its reach into the electricity and waste management sectors in the near-term, building on its growing presence across Asia-Pacific, where it has secured major contracts in Taiwan and China.
Gochang County mayor, Park Woo-Jung, said the new AMI system will enhance the efficiency of the process of meter reading which will provide a better life to the people of Gochang.
“The county-wide water AMI project will bring great efficiency to the water administration at Gochang. [We will] continuously seek for projects that will enhance the quality of life in Gochang,” he added.
Freestyle has also confirmsed that it is planning to list on the ASX later this year to raise capital to accelerate growth across Asia-Pacific and for a launch in India. To date, the company has raised $50 million for its Asia-Pacific expansion.
