The buyout, which comes ahead of Rubicon going public via a special purpose acquisition company, brings in a long-standing software firm with a European presence to the U.S.-based, relatively young Rubicon. The company’s name is CIVIX, not to be confused with the American company Civix, which provides a range of software to government including elections operations, land management and business registration.
The German CIVIX was founded in 1999 and sells the FleetRoute software, designed to handle complex vehicle routing needs.
“On behalf of our team, we are thrilled to have joined the Rubicon family to do our part in accelerating the company’s mission to end waste,” said Dr. Paul Patterson, president of CIVIX, in a press release. “Rubicon has partnered with FleetRoute for several years, and now with this acquisition we will be able to directly integrate our best-of-breed technologies and leverage the synergies between them to bring our customers to new levels of efficiency and performance.”
Rubicon’s technology already included routing, but also a host of data-focused functionality such as the ability to verify when trash and recycling has been picked up as well as vehicle health and driver safety monitoring. Via customized smartphones, the company also uses fleet vehicles — not just garbage trucks — to gather data on street features such as potholes and graffiti. That’s a concept gaining steam in modern technology, with startups such as RoadBotics and Hayden AI offering similar solutions.