Caterpillar has acquired construction equipment technology company Yard Club for an undisclosed amount. Yard Club specializes in helping distributors and contractors to rent equipment they own when it is not being utilized. Caterpillar made an investment in the peer-to-peer Yard Club in 2015. Yard Club was founded in 2013 and since its investment from Caterpillar has been developing fleet management efficiency software for Caterpillar’s dealer network.
According to Yard Club’s website, the company has processed $120 million in rental transactions in 2016. Competitors in the peer-to-peer equipment rental space include EquipmentShare, Getable and Dozr.
San Francisco-based Yard Club has developed a SaaS platform to help customers manage the equipment they own or rent, including tools for dispatch, scheduling and fleet disability, as well as inspection and maintenance management.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.