Vehicle tracking specialist invests in international partner
Crewe-based Radius Payment Solutions has announced a strategic technology partnership with Key Telematics, a global vehicle tracking and asset management company.
Through the agreement, Radius, the group behind the vehicle tracking and fuel card brands Kinesis and UK Fuels, gains access to a market-leading technology platform and further advanced telematics expertise.
Key, which has operations in London, Miami and Capet Town, has a particularly strong presence in Africa giving Radius access to an important developing market.
In total, Radius will secure an additional 62,000 connected devices to the business.
The deal gives Radius access to the larger fleet sector – the company’s existing Kinesis vehicle tracking solution appeals mostly to operators of smaller fleets.
Key’s technology is ideal as a white-label product that is easily integrated with other systems.
This makes it perfect for resellers who offer a wide range of products and services to meet the needs of large fleet operators.
This is Radius’ third telematics investment in four weeks and follows the purchase of UK company Sure-Track and US company CyntrX. Radius also purchased fleet insurer The Burley Group in October.
With vehicle tracking connections having already risen to 175,000, that figure will rise to 237,000 with the incorporation of Key’s equipped vehicles.
Earlier this year Radius was recognised as one of the UK’s largest private companies and ranked 19th in the 2019 Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 100 list, having seen turnover grow to £2.5bn in 2019.
With early success of their Kinesis telematics product only launched in 2015, Radius has become one of the fastest growing telematics companies in the world.
Key has supplied its tracking systems in more than 100 countries and has a technology centre in Cape Town, South Africa.
Radius will develop this as a technical innovation centre, further boosting the company’s development capability.
Key has a strong presence in leasing, bus passenger, fuel card, insurance, earth moving and mining sectors with telemetry solutions for static assets, further strengthening Radius as a provider of solutions to manage and protect distributed assets.
Bill Holmes, Radius chief executive, said: “Our partnership with Key Telematics is an important strategic move that will boost our business globally.
“It’s a partnership that gives us access to a new technical platform, expertise and customers with an innovative product that differs from – but is complementary to – our current telematics offerings.”
In order to accelerate its global ambitions, Radius see sales via third party organisations as vital, with resellers having well established ties in their local markets.
The Key offering has proven to be very popular with resellers around the world because of the open internet platform, configurability and the ease of re-badging the white-label telematics product.
Its solution is also particularly appealing as it is reliable, intuitive to use and very flexible so it can be adapted to meet the wide range of needs of many different operating environments.
Clive Killops, Key Telematics chief executive, said: “The deal with Radius is a very exciting development for Key as we have the backing of one the of UK’s most successful and growing private companies.
“We know we have a market-leading technical platform and with Radius we now have the investment and wherewithal to take on the global market.”
The Manchester office of Addleshaw Goddard advised Radius on its investment in Key Telematics.
The team included Roger Hart, Rachael Norris, Katie Barker, Ben Farnworth, Claire Dyer, Jenny McHattie, Jade Chan, Niall Skelton and Kathleen Gallacher.
