The connected car technology company Wejo has secured an extra £30 million as it tries to put what’s being called “a bumpy year” behind it.
The Telegraph reports that the Cheshire-based company, which collects location, speed and emissions data from vehicles, has had to cut 60 staff over the past year (around 30% of its workforce) and shut American offices.
However the extra cash means it can now talk about a public floatation.
Wejo collects 12 billion data points each day from 10 million cars from companies including GM and Hyundai, which can then be used for in-car apps, mapping services and traffic information.
The Telegraph spoke to Richard Barlow, Wejo’s chief executive and founder, who told it, “When the pandemic hit, and car sales dropped off, we did not know what was going to happen next.
“I had to make some tough decisions. But over the next six months demand for our driver data picked back up, we recovered our revenues from pre-Covid. During lockdown three, we have continued to sign more contracts.”
The paper adds that Barlow said Wejo mades sales of $3.8m last year and is on track to make $16m in 2021, and that the company is in the process of raising further funds.
(Picture – Wejo logo)