Website www.lytx.com Founded 1998 | Headquarters California, United States Type of business Private | |
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Industry Driver risk management, Fleet safety, Fleet video recorder, Driver safety programs, Fuel management, Vehicle tracking Key people Brandon Nixon (CEO), Kelli Richard (CFO) Profiles | ||
Lytx, formerly DriveCam, Inc., is a global driver risk management company located in San Diego, California. It specializes in designing, manufacturing and selling video driver safety programs used by commercial fleets. The company focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of poor driving behavior by combining sight and sound with real-time driver feedback and coaching resulting in reductions in collision-related costs and fuel consumption.
Contents
Lytx serves primarily waste management and sanitation; concrete and construction; transit, para transit and motor coach; utilities, telecom and services; trucking and distribution; government and municipality vehicles.
Founding
Lytx, formerly DriveCam, Inc., was founded in 1998 by Gary Rayner. He was inspired to start the company due to a confluence of three events: (1) a serious road-rage incident, (2) the mystery surrounding the August 1997 crash of Lady Diana in Paris, France, and (3) by ardent efforts to understand the root cause of the 1998 crash of SwissAir Flight 111 with a search, recovery and investigation cost of $38 million. Gary Rayner thought while the above two crashes were tragic - resulting in the loss of hundreds of lives, the greater tragedy is that there were 41,501 deaths on the road in 1998 just in the USA alone, with no ability to access useful "Black box recorders" to identify the root cause of crashes and to correspondingly improve driver training, roads, and vehicles. Gary Rayner's mission was to develop and launch a driver recording system that could provide the needed information from incident and driving recordings to provide insight into driver behavior and other factors influencing crashes. The goal was to reduce crashes, save lives, save money and increase certainty and learnings relating to post-accident investigations. The name "DriveCam" was chosen to emphasize the monitoring of driving behavior through video technology.
In 1999 Rayner was awarded a grant from the Transportation Research Board (Administered by the National Academies of Sciences) to test the viability and utility of information captured by the DriveCam Video Event Data Recorder (VEDR).
In mid 1999, Tom Lafleur met Gary Rayner at an engineering conference and became the lead investor for an angel investment group (Then San Diego Band of Angels) that made an initial outside investment in the company beyond Rayners founding investments which up to that point had been carried by the Rayners on crippling credit card debt. Tom Lafleur quickly became a trusted technical and business advisor to Gary Rayner, and became a board of director of the company in 2000, where he remained until the acquisition of the company in 2016. Gary Rayner appreciatively credits Tom Lafleur with being an important part of the success of the company with providing funding and mentoring at a key time.
In early 2000, Gary Rayner recruited Ed Andrew as President to focus on administration and business development; to allow Gary Rayner to directly lead and focus on the hardware and software product development team. Gary Rayner remained with the company in the capacity of CEO and Chairman of the board until April 2003. Due to the terminal illness of his father, Gary Rayner returned to his native Australia to support his family of origin and remained there for two years attending Queensland University of Technology before returning to the USA again to drive several more successful entrepreneurial ventures.
By November 2002, the company received three patents for technology related to its DriveCam video event data recorder. The DriveCam video event recorder was part of a complete Driving Feedback System used by commercial fleets to monitor, track and improve driving performance.
In 2005, Lytx was included on Inc. Magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing, privately held companies in the U.S. and remained on this list for three consecutive years. The company was also listed as one of the top 200 contenders for the Red Herring 100 North America list in 2006.
In 2007, Lytx partnered with American Family Insurance to provide a video feedback program in which parents can review the actual driving actions of their teens. In 2010, Lytx's teen safety program was awarded by the National Safety Council. American Family Insurance received the 2010 Teen Driving Safety Leadership Award for its Teen Safe Driver Program. The program was validated by scientists at the University of Iowa to produce a 70% reduction in risky driving behavior.
In April 2007, Lytx added cellular technology to its systems which enabled the data to be uploaded wirelessly to Lytx’s Data Center and immediately available to the fleet manager for review.
In 2008, the company unveiled RiskPredict pattern-recognition software that assists in predicting the riskiest drivers within a fleet. Through a process of scoring, prioritizing and tracking the results of behaviors, this model identifies those behaviors that will most likely lead to a collision.
In 2009, the company launched DriveCam Online, a driver management portal that includes dashboards for company-wide visibility, accountability and hotspot mapping for analysis of poor driving.
The company’s big breakthrough was in 2010 when it experienced an orders growth of 87% by adding major new fleets from Sysco, Masco and the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA) as well as extending relationships with top-tier fleets such as AmeriGas and Waste Connections. In 2010, Lytx was listed as #30 on the Wall Street Journal’s List of Top 50 Venture-Backed Companies.
In 2010, Lytx released a behavior-based Fuel Management solution to provide online reporting and coaching to improve fuel efficiency and lower emissions. This release also included a Fleet Tracking solution that provides a real-time view of fleet operations – helping to ensure compliance and improve productivity.
In January 2011, Lytx’s program was enhanced with Geo-Fencing that monitors and reports on vehicles that travel inside or outside of a specific geographic area.
In April 2011, Lytx was awarded a Blanket Purchase Agreement by the US General Services Administration for the purchase of Lytx in-vehicle video recorders and driver feedback systems for the purpose of GPS vehicle tracking and in-vehicle video recording. In August 2011, Lytx became an awarded National Joint Purchasing Alliance (NJPA) Vendor.
In 2011, Lytx participated in Zurich’s Zurich Fleet Intelligence (ZFI) Program and the Hartford’s FleetAhead Program.
Company growth
In November 2011, Lytx received $85 million investment from Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe to fund company’s expansion and the acquisition of RAIR Technologies. The acquisition allowed the company to broaden its services by providing web-based safety and regulatory compliance solutions for DOT-regulated fleets. Along with the acquisition company added patents to its portfolio.
The company ended 2011 with an increase in service revenue that exceeded 50% by adding new fleets from ONEOK, Public Service Electric and Gas Co. (PSE&G), Waste Industries, Linde and Pat Salmon & Sons and expending its relationships with current customers. Lytx also expanded its operations internationally with contracts in Canada and South Africa.
In 2012, the company experienced a marked growth in mid-market, government, waste management, and transportation and logistics and reached $100 million in sales. In addition, the company’s subscription base rose by 50%. The expansion was both through clients’ extending their multiple- year contracts and increasing the number of vehicles in their fleets.
Recent corporate activity
In Feb 2013, Volvo Group Venture Capital invested in Lytx and become a minority shareholder. Both companies focus on reducing traffic accidents due to human error.
Also in Feb 2013, Greyhound Lines deployed DriveCam program across its entire fleet after a successful trial with its BoltBus fleet that reinforced its safety platform and resulted in cost reduction and fuel consumption. Greyhound was already a client of RAIR, a division of Lytx, and now has added the services of Lytx, reinforcing their safety policies.
In Jan 2014, Lytx adds 140 new clients and more than 55,000 DriveCam, powered by Lytx subscriptions in 2013. With this continued strong growth, the company announced that orders exceeded $100 million for the second consecutive year.
Also in Jan 2014, Church Point Wholesale noted a significant reduction in claims with the DriveCam Program.
On Feb 6, 2014, Lytx sponsored the Government Fleet’s "Public Sector Fleet Manager of the Year" Award. The annual award, which reaches its 10th year in 2014, recognizes excellence in fleet management. Lytx joins co-sponsor General Motors in support of 2014’s award.
Feb 24, 2014 saw the announcement of Con-way Freight's plan to roll out Lytx’s DriveCam driver safety management program fleet-wide to more than 8,500 vehicles in support of the company’s industry-leading focus on safety.
On Feb 25, 2014, Lytx announced the winners of its First Annual "Driver of the Year" and "Coach of the Year" Awards. The inaugural award for Trucking/Distribution went to Troy Hurt of Linde North America, while Dennis Burrell of Waste Management received first place in the Waste category, as well as first-place finishes for Casey Howarth of MV Transportation for Transit/Motor Coach, Betty Hoots of Renzenberger, Inc. for Services/Utilities. Myron Broadnax of MV Transportation took home first place in the "Coach of the Year" section.
In March, 2014 Lytx and Sentry Insurance announced plans to provide the DriveCam Program to Sentry’s Transportation Clients.
March, 2014 also saw Lytx announce that it had signed a full-fleet deployment agreement with LifeLine Ambulance, a trusted ambulance provider throughout Southern California. LifeLine provides basic life support (BLS), critical care transportation (ACLS), neonatal and pediatric intensive care unit transportation (NICU/PICU) and bariatric transportation administered by emergency medical technicians, respiratory therapists and registered nurses.
The City of Mobile, AL had experienced a 62% decrease in incidents since deploying the DriveCam powered by Lytx™ Program in 2009 until March, 2014. With the DriveCam Program, the City of Mobile has improved driver behavior, reduced claims and risk, exonerated drivers who are not at fault, and has insight into fleet activity at all times.
March, 2014 saw the American Trucking Associations welcome Lytx as the newest sponsor of ATA’s show trucks: Interstate One and the Share the Road.
On April 9, 2014, Lytx announced it had been granted a series of U.S. patents that support new innovations in its video-based driver safety solutions. Five patents were issued to the company in 2013 and applications were filed for an 18 additional patents. In total, the Company had 20 issued patents and had 32 more pending as of March 31, 2014. The new patents cover aspects of the key components of the Lytx™ process: Sense, Predict, Prevent™, including new innovations in predicting driving risk.
On April 28, 2014, Lytx signed an agreement with ARI Insurance to provide ARI’s transportation and commercial automobile clients with the DriveCam powered by Lytx driver safety management solution.
A May 8, 2014 study of heavy truck and bus collisions conducted by The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) found that Lytx’s video-based driver safety program has the potential to dramatically save lives and reduce injuries. The study concluded that heavy trucks and buses using the DriveCam powered by Lytx™ Program could significantly reduce fatalities, collisions and injuries.
May 28, 2014 marked the announcement that Lytx had signed a full-fleet deployment agreement with Advanced Disposal, the largest privately owned environmental services company and one of the top five solid waste companies in the United States. The agreement covers the deployment of the DriveCam powered by Lytx™ video-based safety solution in 2,800 Advanced Disposal vehicles.
Corporate information
Lytx is a privately owned company. Major investors are Insight Venture Partners, Integral Capital Partners, JMI Equity, Menlo Ventures, Triangle Peak Partners and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. Since September 2008, Lytx has been under the leadership of the CEO Brandon Nixon. The Board of Directors includes Justin Jaschke, Brandon Nixon, Peter Arrowsmith, Doug Carlisle, John D. Clark, Michael E. Donovan, Larry Handen, Mike Morgan and Tom LaFleur.
Lytx holds 13 patents for its innovative design with 21 additional patents pending. It has operations in North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, South Africa and the Philippines.
Products
Lytx provides the following primary solutions: