Our Story

Eproval was founded to solve a specific, widespread problem: how public agencies manage cross-departmental permits for events, film productions, and other activities that don’t fit into traditional land use or registration systems.

The story began in 2015

Our story began in 2015 when the City of Richmond commissioned the development of an automated workflow to process special event permits and grant applications. The City required the solution to be intuitive, flexible and easy for applicants and reviewers. A year of close collaboration with multiple stakeholders produced a solution that greatly enhanced communication between departments, assisted with applicant regulatory compliance, ensured fee collection and drove greater transparency and cost management.

Noting that complex permitting and workflows was a widespread challenge, the IT Director at the City of Richmond suggested there may be an opportunity to help cities everywhere. He was particularly encouraged by the savings in time and money that had cut the administrative hours spent on special event permitting in half.

With that initial encouragement, Eproval was born and began focusing on ways to support special event offices and their specific permitting needs. With V3.0 the platform evolved to a 100% Microsoft Azure-hosted solution to take advantage of microservice resources, on-demand scaling, security, compliance, and development operations. Now in its fourth iteration, with more than 30,000 hours of product development time, the product is a robust, mature and stable platform. It boasts a rich feature set, supports data privacy regulations and has been configured to specific data centers in different countries.

Staying true to our roots, Eproval has been developed in response to customer needs and has been built on a next generation technology platform. This provides a secure, scalable and modern customer experience that allows us to grow alongside our customers.

From Local Roots to Broad Reach

What began as a solution for special events at the municipal level has expanded across a wide variety of sectors:

Cities and Towns – Managing community events, film shoots, vendor licenses, and more
Counties and Regional Agencies – Supporting permits that span multiple jurisdictions
Statewide Use – Enabling agencies with broad regulatory oversight
Academic Institutions – Handling student, commercial, and public-facing events on campus
Diverse Permit Types – From parades and food vendors to sidewalk cafés and construction-related closures

In addition to the product, Eproval as a company has continued to grow, adding subject matter experts and expanding procurement channels. Eproval is now available in all 50 states and both territories through a cooperative contracting agreement with NASPO ValuePoint. In 2021, Eproval was named one of the top cloud-computing companies in British Columbia. We are proud to partner with our client cities and celebrate their recognition as Digital Cities Survey Winners. We are very excited about the journey ahead!