Wejo
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Wejo was a Manchester-headquartered connected-vehicle data company founded in 2014 by Richard Barlow. It collected trillions of data points from more than 12 million connected cars in near-real time - location, speed, engine performance, driver behaviour - and sold insights to automakers, insurers, fleet operators and transport departments. Backers included General Motors (its largest shareholder), Sompo, Microsoft, Ford and US state transportation departments; by 2021 it managed vehicle data for 24 automakers and reached unicorn status.
02 / Wejo FAILURE REASONS
Failure factors supported by the retained evidence
The company could not secure the financing or liquidity needed to continue.
The company could not secure the financing or liquidity needed to continue.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Merger
The company completed a merger.
- Merger
The company completed a merger.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
In November 2021, Wejo completed a reverse SPAC merger with Virtuoso Acquisition Corp, floating on Nasdaq at an $800 million valuation and receiving about $225.7 million.
- 02
The shares collapsed from around $10 to under $0.03; 2022 full-year revenue was only $8.3 million against a $159.2 million pre-tax loss, and a $10 million-a-month cash burn returned in early 2023.
- 03
On May 30, 2023, Wejo announced its intention to appoint an administrator; it formally entered administration in July 2023, all ~150 UK employees were made redundant, and its shares were delisted from Nasdaq - having owed creditors over $100 million.