The Texas-based firm said it has bought Arx, a Michigan software company which touts itself on its website with the slogan “It’s time to trust the police again.”
The firm’s two main products — Arx Alert and Arx Community — are designed to promote transparency by providing more access to crime data, compliance and other areas of law enforcement.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is part of an ongoing buying spree by Tyler that also includes a market-shaking deal announced in February in which Tyler said it would pay $2.3 billion for NIC.
“The acquisition of Arx allows Tyler to offer a full suite of public safety solutions designed to maximize efficiency and safety for law enforcement officers while increasing transparency and trust-building with the communities they serve," said Bryan Proctor, president of Tyler's public safety division, in a press release. "We look forward to the opportunities ahead as we leverage the scale and scope of our public safety portfolio to ensure the needs of the community and law enforcement agencies are met with the highest quality.”
Tyler highlighted two cloud-based software additions to its product portfolio as a result of the acquisition.
Arx Alert is designed to help law enforcement better perform risk management and give supervisors a wider window into policing activity. The technology can send alerts about possible noncompliance issues and provide more insight into what Tyler called “critical incident stress factors.” All that, in turn, can boost police officer retention, Tyler said.
Arx Community helps residents, businesses and community groups get instant access to data about crime and agency accountability, which in turn can strengthen relations between law enforcement and the areas they protect, as well as help “build stronger community partnerships,” according to the statement.
Arx executives and employees will become part of Tyler’s public safety division, also based in Michigan.
“Tyler shares our vision of creating a more unified community for citizens and those that protect them," said Bo Cheng, co-founder and president of Arx, in that statement. "Through that shared vision, Tyler and Arx will work in partnership to accelerate our growth and scale our impact as we help police departments create safer and more equitable communities, with technology and intelligence that makes public safety data clearly seen, analyzed and appropriately acted on.”
Tyler said it has 27,000 technology deployments at more than 11,000 sites in all 50 states, plus some foreign countries.
This latest deal follows an $84 million acquisition announced in June of VendEngine.
That company's technology enables prisons to conduct video visitations, commissary management and other jobs. Those tools, in turn, could help Tyler Corrections further expand its footprint in that part of the local and state government space. Tyler Corrections already provides technology to some 200 agencies.
