DAT Freight & Analytics, a business unit of Roper Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:ROP), announced Tuesday it has acquired capacity visibility platform Trucker Tools from ASG, a portfolio company of Alpine Investors, making a strategic move to enhance DAT’s capacity for carrier engagement, load optimization and fraud prevention technology.
Financial terms of the transactions were not disclosed, and Trucker Tools will continue to operate under its existing brand and leadership.
“We are always looking for value-added services that we can provide along with our two core product lines, our freight matching and analytics solutions,” said CEO Jeff Clementz, who joined DAT in 2023 as chief product officer.
Clementz explained to FreightWaves in an interview that as part of the transaction, Kary Jablonski, CEO of Trucker Tools, will also take on a new role as vice president and general manager of Trucker Tools and Broker Growth at DAT, overseeing the continued trajectory of Trucker Tools while working with the DAT team to provide innovation for its brokerage customers.
Trucker Tools, founded in 2013 and acquired by ASG in 2021, has established a platform that supports over 750 brokers and connects with more than 350,000 drivers, according to the company.
By integrating Trucker Tools into DAT’s existing technology, the company aims to offer enhanced tracking, capacity sourcing and freight matching to its customers, including carriers, brokers and shippers.
“Trucker Tools partnering with such a strong influence on the day-to-day broker workflow is going to help grow our business and innovate much faster,” Jablonski told FreightWaves. “We are a network business so as we scale, we actually deliver an even stronger product to our customers, including stronger compliance and end-to-end visibility. That density makes a difference to us. … I have also got a chance to get to know the leadership team at DAT over the last couple of months, and I am really excited for the Trucker Tools team to be joining a team culturally aligned on putting the customer in the center of every decision we make.”
Both Jablonski and Clementz stressed the importance of the timing of this acquisition, as both parties have started to see data pointing toward a positive break in the market.
Related: Truckload rates near a 2-year high: What truckers need to know
“The last couple years, we have discussed the importance of taking advantage of the down market to set yourself up to scale effectively as the market kicks into gear,” said Jablonski. “I expect to be making sure that our customers are doing that over the next couple of months so they are all set for those nice tailwinds to kick in by 2025.”
New year, new focus at DAT
In the interview with FreightWaves, Clementz detailed that focus on customer needs, discussing the company’s past issues with service disruptions.
“Our number one priority is to have our platform available to customers all of the time,” he said. “We are really proud of the investments we have made this year on fixing that, and right now we have had six months in a row with 99.9% [uptime]. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have an outage from time to time, but when we do they are short and we recover fast and that is a big difference from the past. Improving on that will also include modernizing our platform so we can innovate faster.”
Clementz also addressed growing concern about industry fraud and DAT’s position in mitigating cybercrimes for customers.
Related: DAT has ‘zero tolerance’ for fraudsters
“Every single person in this industry is talking about fraud. Their trust and safety are a huge priority for us and there are several things we are doing to fight it,” he explained. “On Friday, we launched biometric authentication. … We are really proud it’s now live, and it will significantly curtail phishing attacks.”
This won’t be the end of innovation from the DAT team, as the company plans to launch a carrier management suite in the next few months to enable brokers to find and manage the best capacity for their business. The team also currently has a beta test running for a new AI agent that will drive automation among customer workflows.
“We are focused on the usability of our innovation. For example, we have reduced the time to post a truck by 50%, and we have reduced the time to post a load by 25% as well,” said Clementz.
This innovation strategy could potentially include more M&A action as well.
“We are blessed to be a part of Roper, whose core expertise is in M&A and adding new platforms that are bespoke,” he said. “That philosophy is evolving to focus more on these tuck-in acquisitions, like Trucker Tools and its leadership team, that help our existing technology portfolio. … We have no other M&A plans as of right now, but it’s something we would love to do if the right opportunity comes up.”
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