A warehouse management system maker has acquired Herlitz, an inventory management software company based in Cambridge.
The acquisition, finalized in mid-May but just announced Monday, is BFC Software’s first. It coincides with a partnership between Illinois-based BFC and M33 Growth, a growth equity firm based in Boston that works with small software companies and helps them scale their businesses through acquisitions. Both BFC and M33 declined to share the details of the deal.
BFC offers software to manage all aspects of warehouse management: scheduling trucks to drop off food, unloading pallets from trucks, storing them, and redistribution. Its software helps warehouses map out which products should go where based on weight, truck route and truck space.
Herlitz comes into play in assisting distributors to determine precisely how much food to order through its demand-forecasting software, ultimately reducing waste and saving money.
"When applied correctly, Herlitz can help our distribution customers order less and at the same time sell more," BFC CEO Will Collins said.
BFC’s acquisition of Herlitz comes in anticipation of the 2026 due date for compliance with new FDA regulations in the Food Safety Modernization Act, known as FSMA. Those rules, known as the Food Traceability Final Rule, require companies that manufacture, process, pack, or hold foods to keep careful track of those products. The main goal is faster identification and removal of contaminated foods.
The new rule creates new distributor hurdles. As it stands, most suppliers keep track of their food on a pallet level, according to Collins. The new rules require distributors to keep a more detailed record, which requires extreme precision in traceability and takes up more time, space, and labor.
For Collins, the Herlitz integration timeline is easy since both companies focus on their software similarly. BFC's main priorities are investing in product acceleration and modernizing the stack. To do this, BFC is looking to fill two to three open positions for Herlitz's 10-person operation, with plans to grow substantially over time.
Brian Shortsleeve, founder of M33 Growth, told BostInno that since M33 invested in BFC in late August last year, becoming its majority shareholder, the company's engineering team has more than doubled.
“Through acquisitions, the BFC platform can offer deeper, richer products to their customers,” Shortsleeve said.
