Master Lock has acquired Toronto-based software-as-a-service enterprise security solution provider Field ID in a deal the terms of which weren’t disclosed. We’ve heard the deal involving the five year-old startup was in the tens of millions, however, and that the company’s angel investors were very pleased with the arrangement. The purchase nets Master Lock an entry into the software market, something it’s been looking for according to Field ID CEO Somen Mondal.
The deal seems like a weird fit; Master Lock, as you might know, makes locks. Padlocks and combination locks and front door locks, etc. But it also has a lot of enterprise clients, Mondal notes, which isn’t widely known.
“We build safety products, they build safety products,” Mondal said. “I know everyone thinks of Master Lock as, you know, you go to Home Depot and you buy a lock, but they actually sell commercial safety products and they’re trying to find a way to add more technology to their product line, and get into SaaS, and this is a way for them to do that.”
Field ID is a very traditional SaaS company, with an inside sales force and a marketing approach similar to Salesforce. It offers safety inspection and compliance management software, with iPad and mobile-device based field-use applications, and other offerings to help inspectors, auditors and safety managers perform their jobs. The product will continue to operate on its own as a wholly owned subsidiary of Master Lock, with the parent company just essentially doubling the resources of the Field ID team and keeping it intact in its offices in Toronto.
“They’re kind of mixing us in with their traditional sales model but they’re keeping us in place here, but they’re doubling our resources and doubling our inside sales team,” he said. “So it’s almost like raising money kind of, because they are putting a lot of resources into the company but we are maintaining ourselves in Toronto.”
It’s also business as usual for Field ID’s existing clients, Mondal says, so nothing will change on that side of the equation. The focus is to keep growing Field ID’s business as it has been growing already, with an emphasis on recruiting and ramping up, and most of the integration with Master Lock will take place on the sales and marketing side. Still, it’s very interesting to see a decidedly old-school company recognize an opportunity to help carry its brand into a related but separate market opportunity on the cutting edge of enterprise tech.