杏吧原创

01/29/2016
By Ed Brennen

The next time you鈥檙e at University Crossing and your cell phone battery is running low, you can get a fast, free and secure one-hour boost at the new phone charging kiosk made by local startup company .

And if you鈥檙e lucky, you might even run into two of Veloxity鈥檚 co-founders: UMass Lowell seniors Felipe Nascimento and Upkar Singh.

Nascimento, a business administration major in the Manning School of Business, and Singh, a mechanical engineering major in the Francis College of Engineering, launched Veloxity in the summer of 2013 with a pair of high school friends from Chelmsford, brothers Krassi and Lucky Popov, both recent Bentley University grads.

What began in the Popov family garage, where the four young entrepreneurs produced a prototype for Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, has quickly grown into a full-fledged business that鈥檚 provided nearly 300 kiosks for customers around the world, from London to Australia, Vancouver to University Crossing.聽

鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty cool to see it here on campus,鈥� Nascimento says while watching fellow students try out the newly installed kiosk, swiping their UCards to access one of its six lockers for a free charge from one of three different USB cables. 鈥淎 lot of my friends have sent me Snapchats or Facebook photos saying, 鈥業 can鈥檛 believe you guys are here.鈥� It鈥檚 nice to see that people are using it.鈥�

Necessity, the Mother of Invention

The four friends got the idea for the charging kiosk after the repeated frustration of having their phones die while out on weekends. 鈥淲hen your phone dies, you鈥檙e kind of stuck,鈥� Singh says. 鈥淵ou can go to a friend鈥檚 house or charge it in your car, but we thought there should be an alternative.鈥�

So they took to the Internet and found a manufacturer in China that made a similar version of what they had in mind, then began working with the manufacturer and other parts suppliers to bring their self-funded vision to life: an ATM-sized kiosk with a touch screen and LED-lit lockers that could be used, either for a small fee or for free, in places like restaurants, bars, malls, hospitals, stadiums, concerts and trade shows.

鈥淚t took off from there,鈥� says Singh, a self-described 鈥渢ech geek鈥� who serves as Veloxity鈥檚 Chief Operating Officer, handling the logistics of shipping units to clients 鈥� or even loading them into the back of the company-owned Suburban and driving them to events around the Northeast.

Singh, who was born in India and immigrated to the United States with his family as a child, also applies his engineering skills, using his computer-aided design (CAD) know-how to help transform rough concepts into technical blueprints.

鈥淎s with any small business, you鈥檙e not limited to what your title says,鈥� explains Singh, who is currently working on a new kiosk model that is sleeker, has eight lockers and does away with a card scanner through use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip technology.

鈥淲e鈥檙e always trying to make improvements and keep up with what the market demands,鈥� says Nascimento, who as Chief Technology Officer provides technical support for clients like Comcast and Boston University, while also keeping an eye on what the competition has to offer.聽

鈥淲e鈥檙e starting to work in Central America now, but they have to operate on coins and bills because no one has credit or debit cards,鈥� says Nascimento, who was born and raised in Brazil before moving to Chelmsford with his mom in the fifth grade. Unable to speak English, he quickly bonded with the Bulgarian-born Popov brothers. Singh joined the group in high school after moving to Chelmsford from the San Francisco area.

The company, whose name stems from the Latin word 鈥渧elox,鈥� meaning 鈥渞apid,鈥� recently moved its half-dozen employees from a small office in downtown Lowell to a more spacious headquarters in Chelmsford, just minutes from campus.

鈥淚 never envisioned us all working together,鈥� Nascimento says, 鈥渂ut it鈥檚 been great.鈥�

A Winning Presentation

While there were already non-secure phone charging bays for students to use at Lydon and O鈥橪eary libraries, Director of Instructional Technology Support Mike Lucas began looking into a locker version after seeing one at a trade show last year. Lucas found a few companies that make such kiosks, but he recommended the university go with Veloxity for several different reasons.

鈥淭hey impressed me with their initiative and their presentation,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd other than the fact that they were UMass Lowell students, one of the good things about the company was that they were willing to work with our UCard. We didn鈥檛 want students to use their credit cards on the machine, even if it wouldn鈥檛 be charged. Veloxity was also really the only company that didn鈥檛 require outside advertising as part of the package. We don鈥檛 like to inundate students with advertising.鈥�

Lucas says administrators will monitor the usage of the kiosk, which was installed in the University Crossing lobby near Starbucks in December, before deciding whether to add more units in other high-traffic areas around campus like the McGauvran Student Center and University Dining Commons.聽

鈥淲e can see these used in academic space, as well,鈥� Lucas says. 鈥淲hen students are low on juice they can drop off their phone, head to class, come back and be good to go. I can see it being used a lot.鈥�

Viva Las Vegas

During winter break, the Veloxity team traveled to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES. While most companies pay thousands of dollars to attend the world鈥檚 largest tech extravaganza, Veloxity was actually paid by CES to be there and provide four kiosks in the VIP lounges.

鈥淭hat was a blast. I was pumped,鈥� says Singh, who will join the team in March for a trip to Austin, Texas, where Veloxity will take part in the annual South by Southwest festival featuring film, music and interactive media conferences.

Nascimento, who traveled to Atlanta just before spring semester to check on kiosks at the Georgia Dome, says it can be tough to balance a full-time course load with all the responsibilities of a startup.

鈥淚鈥檒l be on my way to class, talking to a customer and trying to finish up the conversation before entering the classroom. Or I鈥檒l have to leave the classroom to make a quick call in the hallway,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t can be hard sometimes, but it鈥檚 a really cool experience.鈥�

鈥淵ou just have to keep Chinese hours and take a lot of cat naps,鈥� adds Singh, who attributes his entrepreneurial spirit to his parents, both of whom have owned and operated several small businesses through the years. 鈥淢y inspiration definitely comes from my parents 鈥� and growing up in a household that has to think for themselves how to make money.鈥�

Nascimento, who started out in computer engineering as a freshman before switching to management information systems, says attending UMass Lowell has fueled his own interest in innovation and entrepreneurship.

鈥淭hinking back to my first year living on campus with a group of engineers, that might have been where everything came from,鈥� says Nascimento, who expects to devote himself to Veloxity full-time after graduating this spring. 鈥淚鈥檓 glad I came here. I can鈥檛 imagine how it would have turned out anywhere else.鈥�

As Veloxity starts to build revenue through sales, rentals and hosting at events, Nascimento and Singh agree that venture capital funding is the next logical next step to grow the business. They also agree that the company has benefited from the entrepreneurial spirit that has taken root on campus.聽

鈥淓veryone has different ideas; not everyone has the ability to make it happen. But when you partner up with other students, it allows for a more diverse workplace,鈥� says Singh, who would love to work with his parents after graduating in December but plans to stay with Veloxity for the foreseeable future.

鈥淚t鈥檚 our baby after all.鈥澛�