Fishidy, the Madison-based startup that’s created an online and mobile platform for anglers, has been acquired by Raymarine, the boating division of Flir Systems, a Wilsonville, Oregon-based developer of thermal imaging cameras and sensors.
The acquisition, which took place in April, was confirmed to Wisconsin Inno by one of Fishidy’s investors, Douglas Monieson, chairman emeritus at Chicago-based Hyde Park Angels.
Fishidy’s Founder and CEO Brian Jensen declined to comment for this article, and Monieson declined to disclose how much Flir purchased Fishidy for. However, Monieson said the firm is “happy with the return on the investment.”
HPA was the lead investor on Fishidy’s Series A round in 2014 when it raised $1.8 million. Other investors included Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Super Angel Fund, and a handful of various angel investors.
As part of the acquisition, Fishidy will still operate under its name, and Flir plans to double down on its offices in Madison and grow the staff there, Monieson said. About six people currently work at Fishidy in Madison.
“This is a good success story for the Midwest—you have a company that was funded by two angel groups,” Monieson said. “When I first started investing, the good companies would be shipped off to Silicon Valley, especially if it had a social component. We’d be losing that talent to the coasts. Now, large companies are purchasing assets around the fact that there’s such good tech talent in the Midwest.”
The startup, which launched in 2012, provides a map-based information feed for fishers to connect with each other. Users can follow waterways, like lakes, rivers and oceans, and see where other users have fished and what their experiences there were like, which gives anglers the best tips and information that allow them to have successful fishing trips.
In an interview with Wisconsin Inno in April, Jensen said Fishidy had more than 900,000 users and was making nearly $1 million in annual revenue. The platform offers maps and content for more than 30,000 popular inland lakes, data on thousands of miles of rivers, and has complete coastal coverage, from Maine to Washington state. Most of Fishidy’s users are in the U.S., but they are increasingly adding more international users.
In 2016, Fishidy acquired FishingScout, which was an Austin-based platform that let users log and share their fishing experiences. As part of the purchase, Fishidy was able to add a significant amount of new users to its platform, especially those in Texas.
