Bestpass-Fleetworthy Solutions, known primarily for toll management solutions, has acquired Drivewyze, which has made its mark mainly in weigh station bypass.
The acquisition for an undisclosed price closed Friday.
It is Bestpass’ third significant acquisition in the FreightTech space in the past several years. Bestpass in November acquired Fleetworthy Solutions, with its focus on helping fleets meet compliance requirements. In 2022, it bought ExpressTruckTax, a Heavy Vehicle Use Tax e-filing system for fleets and others.
And as Tom Fogarty, CEO of Bestpass-Fleetworthy, said in an interview with FreightWaves, these are not one-off acquisitions. The company is intent on building a suite of FreightTech solutions on top of the different offerings with Fleetworthy, ExpressTruckTax and Drivewyze in the fold.
Bestpass and Drivewyze already had a partnership dating back to early 2023 that combined the toll processing capabilities of the former with the data from the Drivewyze product to help ensure the integrity of toll collections and processing that fleets face.
But partnerships were not going to be enough, Fogarty said.
“Customers would ask us if they could get multiple services for solving more of their problems,” he said. “I could see the potential for offering more. When I met with our large fleet customers, they asked us to solve other complex challenges.”
A new investor
What is helping the push to grow through acquisition is the investment Bestpass received from Insight Partners just more than a year ago. Insight joined Susquehanna Growth Equity as the private equity owners of Bestpass with that investment.
“When I brought Insight on, they said, ‘We buy the vision,’” Fogarty said. “They asked, ‘Who have you lined up for discussions?’”
Brian Heath, CEO of Drivewyze who is selling the company he co-founded in 2012, saw it from his place in the freight world. “The customers just continued to ask for more and more integration and a broader solution set,” Heath said in the interview with FreightWaves. “They continue to be excited about what we can uniquely do together that no one else can do. So the market encouragement is there.”
But even with that demand for a fuller suite of services, Fogarty said the deal to acquire Drivewyze was not on his radar. “We’ve got more more than 100 partnerships and we never thought that we’d end up in a situation where we would combine with one of our partners,” Fogarty said.
Beyond Fogarty’s statements in the interview, the press kit released by Bestpass-Fleetworthy also makes clear the company is not likely to stop making acquisitions anytime soon. “Our long-term vision includes continuous development of new services, market expansion and technological advancement,” it said.
The announcement of the acquisition came with a set of quotes from customers that drove home the message that additional offerings from one vendor have efficiency benefits.
“Bestpass-Fleetworthy Solutions and Drivewyze together provide an unparalleled solution for toll management and weigh station bypasses,” said Dennis Dellinger, president and CEO of Cargo Transporters, a North Carolina-based truckload carrier. “Our drivers are more productive, and our administrative workload has decreased significantly.”
The Drivewyze name will continue to exist under the Bestpass-Fleetworthy corporate parent. Drivewyze has added numerous in-cab services in recent years, building on the system in place for weigh-in-motion technology that can enable trucks to bypass weigh stations. Earlier this year, it added a service providing various safety messages. Its Safety+ offering from several years ago provides other information, such as parking availability.
Heath said Drivewyze’s focus has always been on safety. With the acquisition by Bestpass-Fleetworthy, he said, “we can hit that mission at scale faster. To have that scale, it means you can move the needle for the industry as a whole, and that’s an exciting proposition.”
More articles by John Kingston
Crackdown on BQE with WIM technology slashed overweight trucks by two-thirds
Backed by big companies and labor, Supply Chain Council debuts
Fourth consecutive month of decline in truck transportation jobs