Tyler Technologies Acquires Canadian SaaS Provider For Mobile Public Safety App

Tyler Technologies’ significant law enforcement software catalog is getting a Software-as-a-Service update with the acquisition of a Canadian company that designs cloud-based software portals for police on the street.

SceneDoc, an 18-employee company in Mississauga, Ontario, makes software that allows police to use smartphones and tablets to reduce paperwork, increase accurate record-gathering in the field, and enhance reports and citations with geotagging, photos and voice-to-text capabilities—all of which lets them skip trips to the station and be able to file reports from the street.

“We are pleased to add SceneDoc to the Tyler family, enhancing our public safety offerings through a mobile-first approach,” Lynn Moore, president and CEO of Tyler, said in a statement. “Public safety continues to embrace new approaches and tools which keep officers engaged with their communities, and this aligns well with Tyler’s vision for empowering smarter, safer and more vibrant communities. We believe the addition of SceneDoc to our best-in-class product portfolio will address the evolving needs of the jurisdictions we serve, from small municipalities to large counties.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Tyler did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Tyler said smartphones, tablets, wearables and task-specific apps are quickly becoming first responders’ primary tools for communicating in the field. To address the trend within law enforcement, SceneDoc enables field capture of data, electronic notes, and multimedia from these devices with secure storage and access to and from the cloud, Tyler said.

SceneDoc management and staff will become part of Tyler’s Public Safety Division, and its employees are expected to remain in their current locations. Co-founder and CEO Alex Kottoor and co-founder Adrian Bubalo will also join Tyler as general managers.

While Tyler already had some software tools for first responders, it took a big step into the public safety space in 2015 when it bought New World for $360 million and 2.1 million shares of Tyler stock, in a deal worth about $670 million. New World had been around since 1981, and boasted 2,000 public sector clients and 470 employees. The company created software for computer-aided dispatch centers, as well as accounting tools aimed at state and local governments.

For SceneDoc, the acquisition will help the company expand its well-established field reporting software to many more law enforcement agencies across the U.S. by leveraging Tyler’s customer base and sales organization.

Tyler has been focused on expanding its range of software solutions for mobile devices as it courts municipal clients.

In October, Tyler picked up 15-employee TradeMaster, commonly known in the industry as MobileEyes, a company that develops software to improve public safety by supporting fire prevention and suppression, emergency response, and structural safety. It allows firefighters to access information about an address while en route to a call.

MobileEyes—a SaaS based solution with 240 customers—gathers information regarding new construction, inspections, building permits, and the fire prevention aspects of those inspections.