LA CROSSE, Wisc. — DealerVault and its holding company, Data Specialty Group LLC, have merged into Authenticom LLC, creating one company serving more than 15,000 dealerships across the company, the companies announced today.

Officials said the merger will help Authenticom streamline its operation and processes, allowing the company to serve its customers more efficiently.

“Anything that’s good for our dealer customers is good for our company in the long run,” said Authenticom CEO Steve Cottrell. “DealerVault will remain a prominent brand within the Authenticom family, but the administrative efficiencies created by operating as one company will significantly simplify our operations.”

According to the company, Authenticom has spent 10 years building a collection of data management solutions for marketing agencies, CRM systems, business development centers, and third-party service providers in the automotive industry. 

In 2013, Authenticom created DealerVault's parent company, Dealer Specialty Group LLC. In the three years since its founding, DealerVault gained 5,600 customers and more than 450 vendor partners, the company stated.

“DealerVault’s mission hasn’t changed,” Cottrell said. “We’re committed to helping our dealer customers with a cost-effective, transparent data security service and ensuring data syndication in the most secure cloud environment available today. Dealers are sitting on an incredibly valuable asset – the customer data that they’ve worked so hard to acquire. We want to make sure they have visibility into how that data is used.”