CivicPlus was once mostly known as a website builder for local government, but in recent years has diversified into permitting and licensing, 311, human resources, parks and recreation, meeting management and more. Much of that was accomplished through acquisitions of smaller companies.
Now it’s acquiring Optimere, which was itself formed as a result of a three-way merger last year between the companies ArchiveSocial, NextRequest and Monsido.
Those three vendors all, in different ways, help government comply with policies when interacting with citizens. ArchiveSocial is a tool for archiving social media posts, while NextRequest handles public records requests and Monsido deals in website compliance and accessibility.
The common theme, then, between all those functions and CivicPlus is interaction with citizens. CivicPlus has designed many websites for local government; portals that must serve all citizens as well as possible and give them access to information about the government.
“CivicPlus is committed to empowering our customers with technology solutions and services that enable them to govern, serve and operate in ways that foster resident trust and appreciation,” said CivicPlus CEO Brian Rempe in a press release. “Transparency and compliance are foundational components to interactions that strengthen relationships between public administrations and the people they serve. By adding Optimere’s products to our integrated platform, we will help our customers in their goal to make every resident interaction positive, personalized and frictionless.”
CivicPlus is financing the deal with new funding from its private equity owners, Insight Partners. Insight Partners has become a major player in the gov tech space in recent years, placing large-dollar bets on companies such as the digital services provider PayIt and transit tech company Optibus. Insight was also an investor in the public safety tech vendor TriTech Software Systems, which joined CentralSquare when it formed in 2018.
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to clarify that the Optimere acquisition has not yet closed.
