Enterprise Holdings has announced its intent to acquire San Francisco-based Deem – a managed-travel technology platform that includes Deem Work Fource and Deem Ground Work, a suite of online booking and travel technology products for business travelers, travel managers, travel-management companies and suppliers.
More than 50,000 corporate customers and the world's largest TMCs already use Deem's travel and ground transportation software.
"Deem's combination of intellectual property and tech talent represents a significant opportunity for Enterprise Holdings to further enhance and expand our portfolio of services," said Greg Stubblefield, executive vice-president and chief strategy officer for Enterprise Holdings, which owns the Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car brands.
"We have long admired Deem's commitment to creating innovative, customer-focused solutions, while also building a great team and culture," he added.
Enterprise Holdings has been a minority investor in Deem since 2016, and since 2011 Deem has provided the technology behind Enterprise Holdings' EHIDirect travel booking platform for small and medium-sized corporations. Most recently, Enterprise and Deem partnered together to offer National Car and Driver in China through the National Car Rental brand.
Through Work Fource, Deem provides access to travel technology that makes the corporate travel booking and travel experience more efficient for travelers, corporations and their travel agency partners, the company claims.
Meanwhile, Deem's Ground Work platform provides online tools for booking pre-reserved ground transport for corporations and TMCs.
The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019 after satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Deem will continue to operate autonomously from its Silicon Valley headquarters. Rizzo will remain in his role as chief executive, as will the rest of the Deem executive team.
"We believe this long-term investment will continue to pay dividends worldwide for many years to come. We know the industry wants travel management solutions that transform the traveller experience, while lowering corporations' costs," said Rizzo. "We will continue that mission to provide travelers with a streamlined platform that predicts what they want and need, and that works tirelessly for them in the background."
Krish Panu, chairman of Deem and managing partner of Deem investor, PointGuard Ventures, added, "It has been a privilege to have co-invested with Enterprise Holdings in Deem. With Enterprise's capital and scale, Deem can expand its team and resources to drive its pace of innovation at a much faster rate."
As a privately held business, Enterprise Holdings will not disclose financial terms of the Deem acquisition. However, since 2008, Enterprise has spent $2.4 billion making acquisitions and corporate-venture capital investments or commitments across the US, Canada, the UK, France, Ireland, Spain, Brazil and China.