Teletrac was founded as International Teletrac Systems in 1988. It received initial funding from a unit of AirTouch Communication in exchange for 49% equity of the company. Teletrac launched two service offerings in 1990 for its flagship Los Angeles market: a consumer service called "Stolen Vehicle Location Services" and a fleet/enterprise service called "Corporate Vehicle Location services". Los Angeles was followed by Detroit, Miami, Dallas, Chicago, and Houston. In 1991, following the lifting of information services restrictions from the AT&T consent decree, AirTouch increased its equity stake and the company became known as AirTouch Teletrac. Teletrac was purchased from Airtouch in 1996 by James McQueen and headquarters were moved to Kansas City. In 2001, Trafficmaster PLC, a large vehicle location company based in the UK, purchased the assets of Teletrac. Trafficmaster PLC was purchased by Vector Capital in 2010 in a deal valued at $145 million. The company was publicly traded prior to the purchase, but was taken private as part of the purchase by Vector. Prior to the purchase, Trafficmaster was traded on the London Stock Exchange, with the bulk of its income coming from its operations in the United States. In 2013, Vector Capital sold Teletrac to American conglomerate Danaher Corporation. It was reported that Vector made three-times return with the sale.
Products
The company's initial product was stolen vehicle location and corporate fleet vehicle location. It gathered vehicle location data using a technique called multilateration. Specialized base stations and receivers were installed throughout a city and vehicles equipped with special transmitters could have their location determined on command. Once GPS Receivers became affordable, Teletrac discontinued its network-based positioning system and began marketing products and services centered around a cloud-based GPS tracking platform. It has been used for numerous purposes over the years including tracking stolen vehicles and monitoring fuel consumption. The software platform has built-in capabilities that track for compliance with EOBR and FMCSA. The software can be used for basic GPS vehicle tracking as well as compliance with electronic drivers logs. Its capabilities allow for the tracking of a few vehicles or a fleet of vehicles for larger companies. It released a mobile responsive version of its software in 2014.
