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Dive Brief:
- Westminster, Colo.-based technology pioneer Trimble has payments acquired and implementation of Flashtract compliance as it seeks to gain ground in the electronic management of these tasks for contractors, the company announced in a May 8 press release. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
- Flashtract technology is used to manage payment applications, lien waivers and other billing and compliance documentation electronically, according to the release, which eliminates back-and-forth communication and cumbersome document transfers. Trimble has rebranded the technology as Trimble Pay.
- The spindle solution will initially integrate with Trimble Viewpoint Vista, the company’s enterprise resource planning solution for construction, according to the release. Trimble will demonstrate the technology at Construction Financial Management Association national conference later this month and join the Trimble Construction One software suite later this year.
Diving knowledge:
Lawrence Smith, Trimble’s vice president of construction management solutions, said in an interview with Construction Dive that the ball was set in motion for this deal 18 months ago, after the company acquired Ryvit Platform as a Service in January 2023, which creates connections between commonly used applications and data sources.
Smith told Construction Dive that Flashpoint would fit well with the company’s proprietary system, Viewpoint ePayments, which allows builders to manage their accounts payable more efficiently. He mentioned that the goal was to find something that would eliminate as many manual processes as possible through a broader business push toward digitization.
“Flashtrack landed in that sweet spot for us where we felt it was really complementary to the solutions we already have,” Smith said.
Smith declined to comment on the company’s future M&A plans, citing its status as a publicly traded company, but said it was always looking for more companies to add to its portfolio that work with contractors and address the problems.
“You can see from our history that we have been quite an acquisitive company. We’ve acquired a lot of companies in the space,” Smith said.
This is the third company in the last year and change: together with Rivyt, Trimble completed its acquisition of the cloud-based transport management platform. Transporeon in April 2023.
Recent acquisitions by tech stalwarts have taken place against the backdrop of an emerging adoption ceiling in the contech industry, where larger companies have encountered growth challenges after establishing a larger market. When this happens, larger companies can buy smaller ones take advantage of the stronger growth seen in startup customer bases.
Smith, however, doesn’t think that ceiling exists and instead thinks there are deeper places for Trimble to go. He sees the construction industry splitting into two groups: larger contractors, who may have CIOs and move toward technology, and smaller builders who are struggling with adoption.
“I see a lot of opportunity for contractors who are really challenged to adopt technology in a way that brings the most value to their organization,” Smith said.
