Chicago PE Firm GTCR Buying Telematics Specialist Lytx for $500M+

DriveCam video camera mounted in truck. (DriveCam photo)

The Chicago private equity firm GTCR has agreed to pay more than $500 million in cash to acquire Lytx, the San Diego-based provider of dashboard video telematics and driver risk management services, according to a statement this morning from Lytx. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter.

Lytx says its executive team will continue in their roles, and the company plans to expand its San Diego headquarters. Brandon Nixon, who became Lytx CEO in 2008, will continue as board chairman.

Founded in 1998 as DriveCam, the company raised roughly $69 million in venture capital from 2005 to 2009, according to AngelList. (DriveCam changed its name to Lytx in 2013.) Lytx has not detailed its total venture funding, but it would appear to be substantially more.

In 2011, the New York private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe provided $85 million that enabled the company to acquire RAIR, a Wisconsin business that helps fleet operators manage regulatory requirements. In 2013, Volvo Group Venture Capital provided an undisclosed strategic investment.

DriveCam video telematic device
DriveCam video telematic device mounted above truck windshield.

Lytx has identified its major investors as Insight Venture Partners, Integral Capital Partners, JMI Equity, Menlo Ventures, Triangle Peak Partners, and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe.

More recently, Lytx has been emphasizing its growth story. The company said in 2015 it added 365 companies as new customers and more than 300,000 new subscriptions for its analytic services, which Lytx said represents a year-over-year increase of nearly 80 percent.

Last month, Lytx said it now holds about 66 percent of the global market in commercial fleet video safety technology, according to the market research firm Frost & Sullivan.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.