Case Study » Xirgo Technologies: Carveout Through Product (2024–present)

03 The Details

Client overview

Xirgo Technologies emerged from Balmoral Funds' acquisition of Sensata Insights. The carveout reunited three established brands under one revitalized name: Xirgo Technologies, Smart Witness, and Elastic M2M. The company is a leader in fleet vehicle telematics, with modular IoT hardware, AI-powered video telematics, and comprehensive fleet management software.

Key contacts: Julien and Ryan.

The challenge

A PE carveout that reunites three brands needs identity work in stages. On day one, the bare minimum to function as a standalone company. After that, a brand audit to understand what was actually inherited from three previous visual systems and what needed to be built. Then the work of applying that brand across a portfolio of existing products and surfaces that had been operating under different parent-company identities.

By the end of the first year post-carveout, the brand had to land across roughly 20 products with variations, nine existing apps in the suite, and the launch communications that told the market Xirgo was its own thing again.

How the work split

After the carveout go-live, a brand audit informed a split between two design partners. Carolyn Gerard and her team at Gerard, the brand agency she runs outside Chicago, took brand strategy, web, print, and marketing communications. Meticulous took video, 3D product visualization, app and product design, and the UX work that followed.

The split is structural but the work is highly collaborative. The two teams effectively operate as a single internal design team would. Gerard fills the traditional marketing creative and product marketing roles. Meticulous fills the specialty production and user experience and product design roles. Strategy and creative direction run through both teams together.

This is a different shape from a sole-operator brand-to-product engagement. It works because the collaboration is real and Gerard's work and ours reinforce each other on every surface.

PE carveout go-live (2024)

Logo, business cards, Zoom backgrounds, deck templates. The visual essentials needed to operate as a standalone company on day one. Bare minimum, fast.

Brand audit

After go-live, an audit of the brand and its application across the existing portfolio. Three brands consolidating under one identity surfaces gaps that are not visible until the new system has to do real work.

2025 H1: Video, 3D, and brand application across nine apps

Multiple work streams running at once meant pulling in our collaborators to keep turnaround fast. Brian Bullock and Rethink Studios handle the 3D rendering. Rich Adkin and Flikli handle video production. We have worked with Flikli for over a decade on illustrative and explainer video for client delivery.

We built the 3D product visualization pipeline with Rethink. Brian's team handles the rendering using Maya for modeling and a Nuke-based compositing workflow with multi-layered EXR files. Meticulous leads creative direction and the client relationship. The pipeline supports adjustments to lighting, backgrounds, and product details without re-rendering entire sequences. All output at 4K, supporting high-resolution print and future-proofing video assets.

We produced an anthem video establishing Xirgo's identity for trade shows, sales presentations, and web use. Rich and the Flikli team did much of the work where source files were not available, masking and swapping out old brand elements to land the new identity.

Applied the new brand across the existing app suite. Nine applications, previously operating under parent-company visual systems, brought into coherence with the new Xirgo identity for the first time.

2025 H2 to 2026 H1: V3 Auto / Elastic redesign

This was the largest product UX engagement of the contract to date. Full UX/UI redesign of V3 Auto, the third version of Xirgo's Elastic platform. Elastic is the white-labelable software that many of Xirgo's customers operate as their own branded fleet management product.

The structural challenge: Elastic's customers often compete with each other in the same marketplace. White-labeling has to do more than swap a logo. The redesign needed to support meaningful per-customer customization while keeping the underlying experience coherent and supportable across the customer base.

A large part of our work was ensuring this customization is possible through a componentized interface using design tokens. Tokens carry the brand-specific identity of each white-labeled instance through to the production UI without forking the codebase. Each Xirgo customer gets a product that feels like theirs, and Xirgo ships one platform.

2026 H1: New product rollout

Additional 3D rendering for new products coming to market. The pipeline built in 2025 H1 continues to pay dividends. Products still in development get visualized with final branding before physical units exist, supporting sales and marketing timelines.

OUTCOMES
• PE carveout brand work shipped on time across go-live, audit, and rollout phases.
• 3D pipeline removes photography from the critical path. Products in development are visualized with final branding before physical units exist.
• Brand applied coherently across nine existing apps post-acquisition.
• V3 Auto / Elastic M2M redesign delivered as part of the broader carveout work.
• Engagement continues with new product rollouts and additional UX work. Standing calls Tuesday and Friday.