The bosses of embattled Manchester vehicle data form Wejo have now formed at least two new companies since Wejo filed its initial notice of intent to enter administration in May.
Prolific North reported last week that Wejo CEO Richard Barlow and US-based CFO John Maxwell had founded Barmax Bidco Ltd, registered in Bury, Greater Manchester and registered as performing “data processing, hosting and related activities” on June 21.
Further documents now filed with Companies House reveal that a day later, on June 22, the pair registered a second new company, Barmax Newco. The new company, registered company number 14952541, is registered to the same Bury address as the previous day’s variation of the Barmax theme, and Barmax Bidco is named as initial shareholder, with Maxwell and Barlow the sole directors at launch. Like Barmax Bidco, Barmax Newco is concerned with “data processing, hosting and related activities”.
The name of the former company would seem to suggest it may have been set up for some form of bidding process, so could this be the directors utilising the time they have until Wejo’s third notice of administration expires on July 10 to set the stage for a takeover bid for their former company should it finally enter administration next week?
One does have to wonder what of value may be left in the company well over a month after it initially declared its intention to enter administration. A planned merger with US SPAC TKB Critical Technologies that could have raised around $100m was terminated last week, while its flagship relationship with US auto giant GM appeared strained when GM entered a partnership to develop data-led safety solutions with another data firm, INRIX, despite owning a 35 per cent in Wejo, in May 2022. Wejo had previously served as a data supplier to INRIX, according to sources.
Wejo also had a further high-profile partnership with another early investor, US data giant Palantir, though a cynic may suspect that, more than two years after the two paired up, Palantir has already had time to garner what data and R&D value it needed from the arrangement.
A further partnership that sources close to Wejo say could still bear fruit for a reborn company is that with Japanese insurance provider Sompo. This partnership gave Sompo the chance to collect connected vehicle data in Japan, and perhaps the greater Asia-Pacific region moving forwards, which it said it would analyse using the Palantir Foundry data and analytics platform – other big-name Foundry users include Ferrari and Airbus, as well as the NHS, which attracted criticism when it awarded an emegency “no competition” contract worth over £23m to Palantir to mine Covid-19 patient data to assist with vaccine rollout during the pandemic.
The Sompo deal was minor compared to Wejo’s link up with GM – Barlow told Tech Crunch in June 2021, following the Sompo deal, that 95 per cent of its vehicle data came from the US.
But with one of the highest rates of connected vehicles in the world – Statista estimates that by 2035 74 per cent of vehicles on Japanese roads will be connected – the Japanese market is certainly one that could yet provide a potentially lucrative source of income, should a reborn Wejo arise.
