The California-based company, which already sells HR and payroll software to governments, now has acquired technology and expertise in public safety scheduling, officer training and community feedback. The deals follow a year in which NEOGOV’s business increased by 30 percent, CEO Shane Evangelist told Government Technology, thanks not only to the company’s core HR products but also its PowerDMS compliance software.
Terms of the deals were not disclosed.
The three companies now owned by NEOGOV are:
- PlanIt Schedule, a company that launched in 2005 whose software helps public safety agencies craft schedules and perform related tasks, and which is used by more than 900 U.S. departments, according to NEOGOV.
- Agency360, which launched in 2007 and sells technology related to field training for law enforcement, which is typically the next step for a new officer after leaving the academy. As Evangelist described it, the software is akin to onboarding technology.
- CueHit, which was founded in late 2020 and now works with 50 police departments in providing a communications bridge between them and the communities they serve — that includes feedback options for officer interactions, records management tools and even text messages informing residents when a requested officer will arrive, according to Evangelist.
Indeed, the CueHit acquisition reflects a larger trend in the gov tech world of building digital tools to aid citizen feedback and community engagement.
As Evangelist told it, CueHit can serve to boost police department morale at a time when law enforcement has come under severe criticism.
“There is clearly no question that citizen feedback and community involvement are top of mind,” he said. “Most times (the feedback) are positive responses, and that gets pushed to the officer. Anything you can do to help drive morale for that officer is a great thing to do.”
The NEOGOV acquisitions come as the investment and merger-and-acquisition outlook for gov tech — including public safety tools — continues to heat up. An ongoing push to digitize government functions gained steamed during the pandemic, and vendors are striving to not only provide those tools but, when possible, to bundle them into packages that essentially enable one-stop shopping for public agencies.
As Evangelist told Government Technology, NEOGOV intends to treat public safety much like it has treated human resources.
“Our HR stack now has 12 different stacks, up from four” about four years ago, he said. “That makes it super efficient to go to market in that space.”
NEOGOV now offers four public safety technology options, he said, anticipating that number to rise to six or eight by year’s end.
“We are replicating the same strategy in public safety as we did in HR,” he said.
Fuel for such expansion comes from last year’s infusion of cash from Warburg Pincus and The Carlyle Group, though the exact amount remains undisclosed.
