(Tech.eu) Optilogistic, a French logistics software company, has been acquired by Brazil’s Maplink. Mobile commerce company Movile led the deal.

Maplink, a Brazilian technology company that is a leader in geolocation and logistics solutions, announced this morning the acquisition of French logistics software company Optilogistic – which specializes in the development of logistics solutions for the European market. Movile, a global leader in mobile commerce, led the deal. The investment complements Maplink’s portfolio and will transfer to the company more than 60 customers from Europe, Latin America, North America and Africa.
The acquisition underpins Movile’s and Maplink’s global expansion strategy and promises to bring benefits to customers in all the countries where these companies operate. Benefits like payments in local currency, geolocation and mobile cloud services.

The Global 3rd party Logistics (3PL) market is expected to reach USD 1 trillion by 2022 which represents a 4.4% overall growth rate. Global outsourcing trends for multi-national corporations is primarily driving the growth of the logistics market. Growth is also being driven by the on-demand market for logistics services as well multiple distribution channels that most retailers are starting to offer, especially online purchasing.

MapLink’s Logistics Software as a Service (SaaS) platform is poised to make it easy for customers in the on-demand marketplace to seamlessly integrate a complete white labeled logistics solution. According to IDC (International Data Corporation), the global market for SaaS solutions has grown 24.4% over the previous year with the US reaching an annual average growth rate of 18.3%. The world is moving to SaaS for logistics and with the acquisition of Optilogistic, MapLink is in a unique position to take advantage of this shift.
“Logistics costs represent 12% of world GDP. In Brazil, this value is equivalent to 17% of GDP. The acquisition will benefit our customers in terms of process efficiency and productivity, as we will be even more prepared to meet the growing market for on-demand logistics. This acquisition furthers our goals of providing efficient and sophisticated solutions to our customers”, said Frederico Hohagen, CEO of Maplink.

In the market since 1992, Optilogistic is a world leader in logistics in the dairy segment and a specialist in agribusiness, with clients in Europe, Africa, North America and Latin America. Its technologies are dedicated to the development of solutions that meet the complexities of the logistics processes, ranging from complex distribution planning, logistics consulting, implementation, and training for use of the services. Optilogistic has a team of 34 professionals based in Europe who will become part of Maplink’s staff.

“To have a team that specializes in logistics solutions is a big advantage, considering there are not many of these professionals on the market. For this reason, we will promote an exchange among teams, initially focusing on the technology team; although we will undoubtedly promote the opportunity for rotation within other sectors too”, continues Frederico Hohagen.

In the past two years, Maplink has doubled its revenue and generates 30% of its revenues outside of Brazil. With the acquisition, the company is expected to double once again this year. Consequently, more than 50% of revenues will come from abroad. The acquisition will also enable an exchange of products, technologies and expertise, which will help customer’s operations become more efficient and will bring to Brazil a superior technology in comparison to what is currently available.