in Barcelona
3 to 5 Nov 2026US-based IPS Group, Inc. has acquired Populus Technologies, Inc. in a strategic move to integrate Populus’ mobility-and-curb-management software platform with IPS’s smart parking, payment and enforcement technologies. The deal, announced on November 4 2025, closed for an undisclosed sum.
Founded in 2000 and headquartered in San Diego, IPS Group supplies hardware and software for smart parking solutions across North America and Europe.
Populus, founded in 2017 and headquartered in San Francisco, offers a platform that aggregates curb-data, codes curb-usage and enables digital smart-zones and GPS-enabled payments for fleets, and has a presence in over 100 cities worldwide.
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The acquisition is intended to give municipalities, universities, transportation agencies and private operators access to a unified data-driven platform combining parking meters, sensors, payment systems, enforcement and mobility analytics. The combined offering is expected to support smarter planning of curbs, parking assets and multimodal transportation networks.
While the financial terms have not been disclosed, industry commentary suggests the acquisition marks IPS’s first foray into the internet software and services sector and into California.
