Partner News: ROAD Group Holding to acquire majority interest in Geotate

Date: 31 March 2008

ERTICO Partner leverages portfolio with spin out from NXP Semiconductors.

ERTICO – ITS Europe Partner ROAD Group Holding AG has purchased a controlling interest in NXP’s Location Technologies Unit and established Geotate B.V.. The new company will be added to the growing portfolio of independently operating companies in the ROAD Group. Geotate B.V. will be headquartered in the Netherlands with major R&D facilities in the U.K. and led by former NXP executive Hans Streng. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Geotate stands for a unique and patented software/webservice technology which encompasses capturing snapshots of satellite signals and processing this data sometime later to determine the location where the snapshots were captured. Geotate’s store and process GPS technology requires low power and no start-up time, enabling features like automated geotagging of images and videos in digital cameras.

Geotate was introduced to the industry in February at PMA, the annual gathering for camera manufaturers in Las Vegas. “This investment by ROAD Group is a great leap forward for Geotate. It offers the company the necessary independence from the silicon-focused business to rapidly expand the business for our software/webservice-based GPS technology” says Geotate’s Chief Executive Officer, Hans Streng. “We are excited to join the ROAD Group and benefit from the leverage opportunities and the experience of its founders, industry veterans Ad Bastiaansen and Roel Pieper.”

“Within ROAD Group’s strategy, Geotate is a very important piece of the puzzle as it brings geotagging capability to location based solutions,” says Ad Bastiaansen, co-founder and CEO of Road Group. “This will help ROAD Group to drive the development of applications that add location data to any conceivable online source of information.”

Roel Pieper co-founder and Chairman of the ROAD group added: “The hardware needed for web based GPS solutions can be produced at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional GPS, shifting the focus from hardware to connectivity. There is an enormous opportunity for community and location based services. We’re stepping into the future of the web.”

For further information, please visit www.roadgroupholding.com