CheckVideo expands into European market

Jan. 19, 2012
Company opens new office in the UK

Virginia-based CheckVideo, which offers a hosted video surveillance and alarm verification solution, recently announced that it is expanding the availability of its technology into Europe with the opening a new company office in the UK just outside of London.

According to CheckVideo CEO John Estrada, the company has partnered with an established integrator in the market, which will allow them to scale quickly as adoption of its video verification solution begins to rise. Marketing support will be provided by the company's U.S. team, while sales, distribution and technical supported will done by the new CheckVideo Europe office.

"At the end of the day, it generally comes down to people and I think we've aligned ourselves with some really great people in the UK and we're excited about the opportunities as we go forward in 2012," Estrada said.

CheckVideo's cloud-based solution watches video around the clock and can send real-time alerts to central monitoring stations or directly to end-users in the event of an alarm. One of the big differentiators of the CheckVideo product, according to Estrada, is its ability to identify not only movement, but also people and vehicles, which is critical for many of their customers who have large outdoor assets to secure.

"In an outdoor environment, that makes a world of difference," Estrada explained. "We're seeing companies specifically looking at replacing guards or monitoring things that today, while they may have video on it, it's only reactive video."

CheckVideo primarily markets itself through the dealer channel and partnerships with central stations. Estrada said the company is also working on direct end-user contacts and generating leads for its dealer partners.

"We're finding that works very well and of course it helps in the partnership too. I mean we're asking people to 'hey, sign up and sell our product, oh and by the way, here are people that will buy it,'' Estrada said.

Estrada said that the adoption of alarm and video verification technology has seen an uptick recently, aided by the implementation of various "prioritized response" policies across the U.S.

"We're seeing more and more jurisdictions that are either requiring some validation or certainly prioritizing," he said. "We're also seeing sales in areas where it is not an absolute requirement. People see the benefits."

Although the European surveillance market is different from the U.S., Estrada said that it does have some built-in advantages.

"One of the things we recognize is it's not like the United States of Europe so we're going to have to handle things differently in the various countries," he said. "In the UK, in a lot of ways, the market is further along. The number of cameras per capita is significantly higher in the UK than it is (in the U.S.). On the plus side for us in that scenario is they understand the market very well, they understand the core technology and are trying to figure out how to do more with it."

Estrada said that while they are beginning with a small office in the UK, the company is already looking into pursing growth opportunities across the continent.