XOi raises $230M, acquires Specifx to expand its tech for field service technicians

Field service engineers may not be the first group of customers who think about profitable opportunities in B2B technology. However, for those who are taking the same blind spot and targeting the “job site”, the place speaks of the opportunity.

A player in that place, Pamper – which manages to snap pictures of maintenance and make software to access information about the machines they are fixing – it announced on Tuesday that it has increased the new round of $ 230m from the KKR to expand its business.

XOI will immediately use a portion of that fund for immediate growth: it is about 85,000 additional model family and another company buying another company to increase its datasets with more information related data. XOI plans to integrate the data on its existing platform to provide more device-specific instructions and other data to its users, as well as to create more datasets for maintenance, upgrades and other jobs.

XEI does not reveal the price for setting a specific price, nor will it be its own evaluation after the new fund. From what we understand, this agreement makes KKRK the majority of XOI’s owner, which has earlier collected less than $ 20 million. We also understand that the price of less than half of the $ 230 million that KKR has left is. This is the first acquisition of XOI.

This agreement is the latest turn and development of a company that has been around for 20 years and has begun life in some different fields than today.

Nashville’s headquarters, Joi was originally called in pairs and then Joa (Both Whom Featured By TechCrunch for years). In that avatar, the company was creating hardware – especially, 3D glasses attached to DIY enthusiasts, and then field service technicians remotely get more information for contact with remote engineers and customer service assistants, such as technicians did electric work, equipment, plumbing, airline. Conditioners, stoves or other machines.

However the hardware is really difficult, and that business failed to achieve success. The price of the unit was very high for the company’s budget conscious customers, and the form of the form was very unique to the level they need to stay in a piece of site.

CEO and co-founder Aaron Salo pointed to his investor KKR partner Jack Heller, “If they look cool like his glasses,” it probably worked. “

Meanwhile, the startup saw the opportunity to create an application that captured all the same data as glasses, but its target users could be used on the phones and tablets that started receiving.

As a result, Joey dropped the “eye” for “i”, whose CEO, whose CEO Aaron Salo says “detective” now, and the business is closed.

Companies such as XOI and Specifix are usually a growing number of companies that are part of the building solutions that are generally referred to as “Field service“Or”Frontline“Workers, people who are not sitting at the desk who are working in the physical environment in the face or in the field. What distinguish them from others in the same place is, a large number of applications focus on certain fields and not others.

Salo said, “Many of their business activities were created to run, the schedule, the shipment,” but you go to the site and you are ignored. This is an underverted space. “

There is no reason to deny that selling data, business intelligence and other less clear resources can be a challenge in the market anchored in very physical work. But as the industry is about to develop, and the machines have become more sophisticated themselves, it has drawn more customers towards companies like XOI to help engineers finish their work.

Heller said, “This organization has the true religion, has taken them ‘laboratory’ and leaving it on the field, leaving it and works, which for example, to reach the places are really uncomfortable, tightly,” said Heller. “The magic of this software is that it provides uncomfortable people all day to make the rest of our lives comfortable.”