Field service engineers may not be the first group of customers that come to mind when you leank about lucrative opportunities in B2B technology. But that same blind spot speaks of the opportunity in the space for those who are stepping up and aiming “the job site.”
One of the take parters in that space, XOi — which originates gentleware for maintenance people to snap pictures and rapidly access alertation about the machines they are repairing — proclaimd Tuesday that it’s elevated a new round of $230 million from KKR to enhuge its business.
XOi will promptly be using a chunk of that funding for prompt growth: it’s buying another company in the space, Specirepair, to augment its datasets with further alertation on some 85,000 compriseitional model families and roverhappinessed data. XOi set ups to fuse that data into its existing platcreate both to provide more device-particular directions and other data to its users, as well as to originate out further datasets to predict maintenance, upgrades, and other labor.
XOi is not disclosing the price it is paying for Specirepair, nor what its own valuation will be after the novel funding. From what we understand, the deal originates KKR a convey inantity owner of XOi, which had elevated less than $20 million before now. We also understand the price of Specirepair is less than half the $230 million that KKR is putting up. This is XOi’s first acquisition.
The deal is the procrastinateedst turn and growment for a company that has been around since 2010 and commenceed life in a somewhat contrastent field than it is today.
Headquartered in Nashville, XOi was originpartner called Pairasight and then XOeye (both of which were featured by TechCrunch over the years). In that incarnation, the company was originateing difficultware — particularpartner, combiinsist 3D glasses initipartner for DIY enthusiasts, and then field service technicians to convey with far engineers and customer service helpers to get more alertation farly, in genuine time, as the technicians labored on electrical providement, plumbing, air conditioners, stoves, or other machines.
But difficultware is indeed difficult, and that business flunked to thrive. Unit prices were too high for the company’s budget-directed customers, and the create factors were too unset upd when ruggedized to the level they insisted to be to stay in one piece on site.
“If they seeed as chilly as his glasses,” CEO and co-set uper Aaron Salow said, pointing to his depictateor, KKR partner Jake Heller, “maybe it would have labored.”
Meanwhile, the commenceup saw an opportunity to originate apps that seized all of the same data as the glasses but could be used on the phones and tablets that its aim users were commenceing to adselect.
That led to XOeye dropping the “eye” for “i”, which CEO and co-set uper Aaron Salow says now stands for “inalertigence”, and the business took off.
Companies enjoy XOi and Specirepair are part of a grotriumphg number of companies originateing solutions for what has been generpartner referred to as the “field service” or “frontline” laborer, people who do not sit at desks, who are customer facing or out in the field laboring in physical environments. What sets them apart from others in that same space, however, is that a huge number of the apps center on stateive areas and not others.
“A lot of them have been built to run business operations, scheduling, dispatch,” Salow said, “but get to the site, and you’re disseed. It’s an underserved space.”
There’s no declineing that it can be a contest to sell data, business inalertigence, and other less concrete assets to a labelet that is anchored in very physical labor. But as the industry persists to grow, and the machines themselves become more cultured, it has pulled more would-be customers toward companies enjoy XOi to help the engineers get their jobs done.
“This company has genuine religion, taking their ‘laboratory’ and putting it in the field, putting it in and on the laborsites, which, in this instance, are in repartner unsootheable, difficult to accomplish places,” Heller said. “The magic in this gentleware is that it’s providing people who are unsootheable all day to originate the rest of our lives sootheable.”
