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Locia’s digital solutions help cities’ decision-makers

Headquartered in Kuopio, Locia Solutions Oy was founded in 2019 to help city leaders to plan city service provision systems effectively by changing the way local governments work together. Locia focuses on the digitalization of urban planning processes and providing effective data-driven tools for integrated management of facilities and services. Locia`s prime goal is to break the paradigm of siloed planning and promote the transition to dynamic, anticipatory and transparent governance processes in smart cities. The company was rewarded with Finnish “From Technology to Product” innovation prize in 2019.

Locio team has a combination of special expertise ranging from architecture and urban planning and decade-long experience in the built environment industry to sales and international business. Besides practical hands-on experience, the team has strong scientific competence. They have developed a cloud-based decision support system and planning tool called CapaCity™ which is a game changer tool for cross-sectoral city services and facilities planning such as schools, kindergartens or health care units. Their innovation is backed with academic research of evidence-based planning processes and data-driven tools supporting smart, anticipatory urban governance.

Locia’s award-winning CapaCity to promote equality and diminish segregation between regions

CapaCity™ is a data-driven innovation that allows cities to navigate effectively towards sustainable future. The transition to climate-resilient and healthy living environments requires system-level innovations and tools that enable effective collaboration. One aspect of this is better overall management of the entire process chain from land use planning, investment programming, building design and construction to real estate property management, energy consumption and actual services operations provided for citizens. It integrates several, often disintegrated subfields of urban planning, real estate management and service operations, and creates a shared information environment for stakeholders and ecosystem operators.

The innovation supports especially strategic decision-making, and significantly improves anticipatory capabilities and optimization of resource use. By creating an overall picture over asset types, investment needs and operational performance, it promotes sustainable construction and renewal of service infrastructure and helps making tactical decisions over property portfolios. Future-oriented and anticipatory planning will bring significant benefits for reaching the sustainability targets. Purposive collaboration among different levels and sectors of society – private real estate developers and companies, public governance, and citizens – is at the heart of social sustainability.

CapaCity™ is an effective tool for city-wide coordination and management of urban services planning. It provides up-to-date information environment for integrative urban planning thus saving time & money during planning processes and implementation. It integrates several, often disintegrated subfields of urban planning, real estate management and service operations, and creates a shared information environment for stakeholders and ecosystem operators. Locia’s award-winning solution supports investment programming and strategic decision-making, and significantly improves anticipatory capabilities and optimization of resource use in cities. It is a data-driven collaboration and shared information environment, that turns static plans and reports into dynamic insights, replaces manual data gathering and enables faster project lead time – which creates significant cost savings and ensures efficient services supply for citizens based on location-specific demand.

Architect using transparent tablet smart construction technology in double color exposure effect

Urban Tech Helsinki helps Locia easily dodge the bumbs on the road to create an overall picture of where and how the city should organize its services

In 2020, Locia team initiated a Proof-of-Concept pilot with the city of Helsinki (Urban Environment Services/Real Estate Services and Education Services). In Helsinki, renovation costs for kindergartens, schools and playground buildings will rise up to 1.3 billion over the next 10 years. In the 2020 budget, the investment level in service facilities was approx. 260 million euros. During the pilot, the city estimated that for daycare services alone, the estimated savings with better optimization of investments (with 5% less) and avoidance of temporarily facilities, could be 15M€/year, and 18M€/year with similar increase in efficiency in service operations. Locia hopes to continue taking the next steps in validating, testing and refining their innovation with the City of Helsinki.

It has been very fortunate for Locia to have the possibility to join the Urban Tech Helsinki program and learn from other Urban Tech companies. The advisor team has been a great help for Locia team by providing them well targeted and tailored advice with a friendly and problem-solving oriented approach. The team has so far benefited the most from the one-to-one discussions, and coaching for improving their key message during the program. These concrete actions are also very important for them to gain visibility.

At the end of the year, Locia is planning to have strenghtened its team and have closed a successful funding round. They are also targeting to gain new customers on the way of their growth. Locia is looking for key team members to strengthen the company from the point of view of tech and business leadership along with smart money from their investors and partners to help their mission accomplish faster.

To learn more about Locia Solutions, click here to visit their website.