Kirkland-based traffic management company Inrix is still looking for its exit event.
The company in 2020 told the Business Journal it was aiming for an exit event sometime by 2025. Three and a half years later, co-founder and CEO Bryan Mistele said the company is keeping to that plan after raising $70 million from investment bank Morgan Stanley earlier this month.
"We're pretty flexible in terms of what the structure of a transaction might look like," Mistele said. "Our goal is to get liquidity and returns to our shareholders. Whether that takes the form of an IPO or takes the form of a sale or a series of private equity transactions, it really depends on the market and what we think the best route is."
Mistele added that Inrix was planning for an initial public offering last year and got within two weeks of filing the paperwork. Given the market downturn, however, the company decided it was better to wait for better conditions.
Inrix was founded in 2005. The company generates traffic and parking data for clients. Businesses can use the data to make decisions on new store locations, and cities can use the technology for urban planning and limiting traffic congestion. Transportation agencies, meanwhile, can use Inrix for highway and intersection planning, while car companies use Inrix to help drivers find cheap parking and stay alert to unsafe driving conditions.
Inrix has more than 450 customers, including the city of Austin, BMW and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
About 100 of Inrix's 350 employees are based in Kirkland. The company doesn't have a specific target for its headcount a year from now, but it's hiring, Mistele said.
Inrix's office is at the Plaza Yarrow Bay campus, near where Lake Washington Boulevard Northeast crosses over state Route 520. The company works in-office four days a week.
Mistele said Inrix will look into new office options once the company's lease is up in a year. He added that many of the restaurants near its office closed during Covid, and the company would like employees to have places to eat nearby. It's targeting the Eastside, looking at locations in Bellevue and Kirkland.
In addition to its Kirkland space, Inrix has offices in Santa Monica, California; Munich; and three in the United Kingdom.
Mistele said the company wants to use the $70 million round to grow internationally, and is moving more into helping clients predict the impact of traffic decisions, like closing a road, rather than just telling them what is happening now.
"The next area for us to focus is going to be sustainability and helping analyze data around sustainability, electric vehicles, pollution, carbon emissions and things like that," Mistele said.
