A St. Louis-based startup that provides technology for the construction industry has become part of a publicly traded company.
The startup, Rvvit, has been acquired by Westminster, Colorado-based industrial technology company Trimble Inc. (NASDAQ: TRMB). Financial terms of the deal, which was announced Jan. 4, were not disclosed.
Founded in 2016, Ryvit has created software used by construction companies to provide integration across multiple applications used by firms. It says its software is designed to provide various groups like architects, contractors and developers the ability to access and share information on construction projects. Ryvit, with its headquarters at 2025 S. Brentwood Blvd., has 40-plus employees.
With its sale, Ryvit joins a global technology firm that posted 2021 revenue of $3.6 billion, employs more than 12,000 and provides its software and services to the agriculture, construction, geospatial, government and natural resources markets. Trimble said it plans to incorporate Ryvit’s software into its Trimble Construction One, its construction management technology platform, and rebrand Ryvit’s “primary offerings” as Data Xchange and App Xchange.
“The construction industry today is stymied by disparate data and technology solutions that don’t connect with one another, making it difficult to share information across departments and amongst project teams,” said Pete Large, senior vice president of Trimble’s construction segment. “Ryvit provides a platform for software solution providers and construction stakeholders to rapidly build and deploy workflows, enabling the automatic flow of critical information across organizations and teams in real time. At Trimble, we believe that openness and interoperability are imperative to the future of the construction industry and are excited to extend Ryvit’s capabilities to more customers, applications and partners as we move the construction industry forward.”
Ryvit founder and CEO Tom Stemm said his startup has had an existing relationship with Trimble prior to the acquisition. He noted Trimble’s 2018 acquisition of construction software firm Viewpoint, which has had its technology integrated with Ryvit’s software.
“I’ve been partnered with Viewpoint really since Ryvit’s conception, so we informally and naturally had a connection to Trimble due to the nature of that relationship and got to know (it) and extended out to several other product lines within Trimble and the construction sector,” Stemm said.
While Ryvit wasn’t actively pursuing a sale, Stemm said an exit was always on the horizon for the company given it has raised funding from venture capital backers.
“Our exit strategy was based on an assumption and a model that implied we’d have strategic interest at some point. Trimble was a very natural fit,” he said.
Since its launch, Ryvit raised a little less than $6 million from investors, with Stemm saying 92% of its outside capital came from St. Louis and Midwest-based investors. St. Louis-based investors in the company included the St. Louis Arch Angels, Hermann Cos. and Dreampact Ventures.
Moving forward, Stemm said Ryvit plans to maintain its presence in St. Louis, adding he believes Rivet’s success is validation for the local talent in St. Louis that helped build the company and get its foothold in the construction market.
“The St. Louis ecosystem is strong. It has always had a great construction presence. A lot of brand names in the construction industry are centered here in St. Louis, most of whom are customers of ours, and it just continues to be exciting validation not only for Ryvit, but our community,” Stemm said.
