Share trading in connected vehicle data company Wejo is to be suspended this week.
The connected vehicle firm, which was founded in 2014 and ranked sixth on our TransportTech 50 ranking late last year, was at one point valued at $800 million and tipped to achieve unicorn status.
The Manchester-headquartered business is listed on the Nasdaq in the US, where its share priced crashed a week ago following news that Wejo Limited is preparing to enter administration in the UK and evaluating whether it will file ancillary insolvency proceedings for the company and its other subsidiaries in other jurisdictions, including in the United States.
Its market cap fell drastically to $13.5m and has plummeted ever since. It currently sits at just $1.6m.
Now Wejo has received a written notice from the listing qualifications department at Nasdaq to say its shares will be delisted. It is expected that they will be suspended from Friday as Wejo does not intend to appeal the decision.
An insider told BusinessCloud last week: “There’s been a sea change among investors globally when it comes to investing in high growth, loss-making tech stock. Wejo has been a victim of that.
“Given the fact Wejo’s quarterly results were only a few weeks ago the news has come as a real shock.”
The business is headquartered at the ABC Building, in Manchester, but has offices around the world, predominately in US.
It’s thought the company employs just under 200 people.
Wejo is a global leader in cloud and software analytics for connected, electric, and autonomous mobility.
The company processes trillions of data points from 20.8 million vehicles, of which 13.9 million were active on the platform transmitting data in near real-time, and over 94.6 billion journeys globally.
The game-changing moment for Wejo came in 2018 when General Motors took a 35 per cent stake in the business. It’s believed the data will belong to General Motors.
The idea for Wejo (which comes from the words ‘we’ and ‘journey’) was sparked by Barlow’s passion for motor racing and Formula 1, where data is routinely collected to improve performance.
He realised if the connected data technology in motor racing could transition into the mainstream automotive sector he would have a business – and so Wejo was launched in 2014.
“The majority of new cars sold in the world, and most people don’t know this, have telemetry in the car,” Barlow told BusinessCloud in an earlier interview.
“Your average car has 200 sensors now. The motor manufacturers don’t have a platform to send the data to and that’s where Wejo comes in.”