Solera completes purchase of DealerSocket

Solera Holdings Inc., which specializes in data and software for the insurance and automotive industries, said Monday it closed on its acquisition of dealership technology company DealerSocket.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The tie-up was announced last month.

It was not immediately clear Monday what the acquisition will mean for DealerSocket, of Irving, Texas, which provides auto retailers with dealership management systems, customer relationship management platforms and other software. Solera declined to comment.

Solera, of Westlake, Texas, also completed its purchase of Omnitracs, which provides fleet management software. Solera, DealerSocket and Omnitracs all are portfolio companies of private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. Vista bought a stake in DealerSocket in 2014. According to Vista's website, a Vista fund completed a buyout of Omnitracs from Qualcomm Inc. in 2013, while a separate Vista fund took Solera private in 2016.

Solera also said Monday it acquired eDriving, which provides digital driver risk management services for commercial fleets.

"These acquisitions enable Solera to further enhance our end-to-end vehicle life-cycle solutions for customers and bridge the gap between vehicle and driver performance on a global scale," Solera CEO Darko Dejanovic said in a statement. "Solera is uniquely positioned to lead the industry through innovation, geographic expansion and additional strategic acquisitions."

Solera's acquisition of DealerSocket and Omnitracs could signal that Vista Equity Partners is considering taking the company public, The Dallas Morning News reported last month.

In March, Vista Equity Partners reportedly considered taking Solera public through a special-purpose acquisition company, Apollo Strategic Growth Capital, according to reporting from Bloomberg. The combination of DealerSocket and Omnitracs with Solera could value the deal at roughly $15 billion, though the deal reportedly was halted that same month, Bloomberg reported.

The companies have not said whether DealerSocket will retain its name, whether it will be a subsidiary or a division of Solera, or what CEO Sejal Pietrzak's role will be under the combined company. Pietrzak was named to Automotive News' list of 100 Leading Women in the North American Auto Industry in 2020.

Also in 2020, DealerSocket acquired Auto/Mate, a DMS provider for franchised dealerships, for an undisclosed price, though court documents estimated the deal at close to $200 million. The merged companies have more than 9,000 dealership customers. Pietrzak has said DealerSocket aims to provide dealerships "a one-stop shop" for technology products.