Descartes announces acquisition of Foxtrot

Waterloo, Ontario-based Descartes, a provider of logistics based on-demand, software-as-a-service offerings, said this week it has acquired Foxtrot, a provider of machine learning-based mobile route execution solutions for beverage, food & e-commerce companies.  

Descartes said the purchase price was roughly $4.0 million.

Foxtrot’s book of business includes well-known companies like Coca-Cola, Nestle, and P&G. And Descartes said that Foxtrot’s advanced ML algorithms leverage millions of data points collected from vehicles in the field, helping customers reduce last-mile costs, improve customer service, and learn service factors that improve route efficiency and on-time performance. 

“Foxtrot enhances our recent investment in GreenMile, as both companies have extensive experience in the retail food and beverage distribution vertical,” said Edward J Ryan, Descartes’ CEO, in a statement. “We also see an immediate opportunity to leverage Foxtrot’s capabilities across our wider route planning and execution solution suite. We’re thrilled to welcome the Foxtrot employees, customers and partners into the Descartes family.”

Chris Jones, EVP of Industry and Services at Descartes, told LM that, in terms of what drove Descartes to acquire Foxtrot, he explained that because leading logistics and supply chain solutions have so much domain expertise built into them, Descartes is always looking at companies that can help accelerate its ability to serve its customers.

“Machine learning is becoming a powerful way to improve logistics and supply chain performance and a great interest to Descartes,” he said. “We have multiple efforts underway in machine learning. Foxtrot helps us build critical mass in the fleet optimization market. We can see the value of the combination with the common distribution-oriented customers we already have.”

When asked what the main competitive advantages of this deal are, from a Descartes’ perspective, Jones observed that Descartes has been making several investments in the route execution area recently such as GreenMile, an Orlando, Fla.-based provider of cloud-based mobile route execution services for food, beverage, and broader distribution verticals, that Descartes acquired in July 2021.

“Both GreenMile and Foxtrot have been focused on global food and beverage distribution companies, so the combination will strengthen our capabilities in that market and to our other route planning and execution customers,” he said.