Battery Ventures splashes out to absorb Berlin car tracing platform Vimcar

Vimcar, a Berlin-based startup whose fleet management software and GPS sensors let car rental operators keep tabs on vehicles, has been acquired by US VC Battery Ventures for a €135 million sum.

That's if today's story from Deutsche Startups is to be believed. Though we've only got the publication's sources to go on, it seems Vimcar will become the latest buy in Battery's private equity and buyouts playbook, which aims to build on "category-defining" businesses globally from offices in Israel, Boston and Silicon Valley.

Vimcar's founding team of Andreas Schneider, Christian Siewek and Lukas Weber got their big break in 2013. The startup's live vehicle tracking has expanded to support a decent range of OEM vehicle models, laying claim to enabling digitisation to manage whole company car fleets, like car rentals, without tying the customer into new vehicle purchases.

There's more ⁠— Vimcar's suite of APIs enables geofencing through the use of automation to digitally confirm trigger locations and issue an automatic invoice setting out charges, saving car rental companies operating leakage.

The startup has furnished its growth strategy with the raising of around  €18 million, Deutsche Startups said. Vimcar last raised capital in early 2019, nailing down roughly €18 million at a €45 million valuation. Its leading investors include UVC Partners, the venture fund linked to Technical University of Munich, which owns a 15.4% stake.

Aside from UVC, there's also Atlantic Labs (23.2%) Coparion (17.6%) and Acton Capital (12.7%), poised to sell down shares if the Battery Ventures deal closes.

For the Battery Ventures team, this would mark yet another foray into the German innovation space. It's previously backed German talent from the likes of Easy Software, a supplier invoice automation software startup, and WinWorker, a field work management platform based in Goch.