Private equity firm buys GPS Insight to build fleet management software shop

The private equity firm Accel-KKR has acquired fleet management software vendor GPS Insight and will merge it with two other transportation technology firms it already owns, making a move to create a “single-point solution leader” for the medium duty trucking sector, the company said Wednesday.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company said that Gary Fitzgerald, CEO of GPS Insight, will continue in his leadership role as CEO of the combined businesses.

Menlo Park, California-based Accel-KKR will merge GPS Insight with InSight Mobile Data (IMD) and Rhino Fleet Tracking, two firms that provide fleet management, field services, and GPS tracking for Class 3 to Class 6 trucks fleets in sectors such as garbage trucks, construction trade vehicles, and food and beverage distributors.

Together, the three firms serve over 11,000 accounts spanning more than 30 industries and over 225,000 vehicles. They provide services such as GPS tracking, fleet utilization, scheduling and dispatching, and driver safety and compliance. They now plan to expand that range of offerings as fleets adopt broader technologies like 5G wireless networks and connected devices, the firm said.

“Fleet owners continue to grapple with the need to optimize investments in their people and their fleet while providing a high level of customer service and ensuring driver safety and compliance,” Fitzgerald said in a release. “The GPS Insight platform is bringing exciting changes to the industry such as video telematics, tighter integration to field service management, and advanced analytics that transform what fleet management software is capable of doing.”

The acquisition marks Accel-KKR’s latest move in the logistics tech sector, following its 2020 decisions to buy logistics connectivity provider TrueCommerce, the yard management software vendor Pinc Solutions, rail industry software solution provider RailcarRx, and the transportation management system (TMS) software vendors ShipperConnect and ShipXpress.

The firm now appears to be following a similar strategy with its GPS Insight deal, combining the firm with complementary vendors to create a single provider with greater scale. “We are thrilled to bring these businesses together with a unified vision of what the next best-in-class leader in fleet management can deliver in the marketplace,” Dean Jacobson, managing director of Accel-KKR, said in a release. “Fleet, field, cameras, analytics: these are all converging to provide actionable insights and deliver significant value to customers. We believe the platform comprising GPSI, IMD, and Rhino will be poised to be a powerful, single-point solution leader in the industry.”