Are two of the autotech companies that were merged into SPAC companies last year, and have since lost most of their ownership, on the way to a merger between them? to evaluate market factors, Autonomous The Israeli company is in talks with its British competitor Wejo, for a possible merger. No response to the news was received from Autonomo.
Such a merger, if it does happen, may price Autonomo at a value of approximately $150 million, significantly higher than its current value of $55 million, but lower than its value at the time of the merger with the SPAC last summer – $1.26 billion, representing a 96% decrease in the stock since the merger.
● A Saudi investment company has become the largest shareholder in the Israeli Autonomo
● The collapse of the Israeli autotech shares that arrived on Wall Street with almost no revenue
Autonomo, led by founder Ben Volkov, has developed a platform and trading arena for data collected from connected vehicles. Vijo deals in the same field, and like Autonomo it was merged into a SPAC company, when the value of its activity in the merger was 800 million dollars, compared to a current value of 97 million dollars. The car company General Motors invested in Viejo before becoming a public company, and it has collaborations with it and other companies, such as Microsoft, Palantir and Renault.
Together they will address a market of 61 billion dollars
Market sources estimate that a merger between Autonomo and Vijo could produce a company with a stronger balance sheet and a wider market scope, and that together they will address a market that is expected to reach approximately 61 billion dollars in 2030; We also noted that both companies have complementary customer bases, and the merger will help reduce costs.
Between the middle of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, the SPAC trend stood out on Wall Street – inactive companies that raised money from investors with the aim of finding a target for purchase within a predetermined period of time. The companies raised large sums of money and with them merged companies, some of which were later found to be too immature for the public market.
At that time, the market also welcomed and at generous valuations unprofitable technology companies, but with an expectation of rapid growth in the future. Many of the companies that came to the market on Wall Street by merging into SPACs were unprofitable companies, with very modest revenues.
Both companies are still at the beginning of the road. Vijo was supposed to publish the third quarter reports, but postponed their publication, while Autonomo published the financial reports this week.
In the third quarter, Autonomo recorded revenues of $2 million, compared to $161,000 in the corresponding quarter last year, and since the beginning of the year its revenues totaled $4.9 million, compared to only $657,000 in the corresponding period.
At the same time as the revenue increased, Autonomo’s operating loss also grew, amounting to $37 million in the quarter and $116 million in the months of January-September. On a Non-GAAP basis, excluding various accounting items, the operating loss in the third quarter reached the level of 13.4 million dollars, and since the beginning of the year it amounted to 41.6 million dollars, and here again in both cases it is a deepening of the losses compared to the corresponding periods in 2021.
Upon publishing the reports, Volkov said: “The third quarter reflects significant and stable progress in our core business, vehicle fleets and insurance.” He added that the number of customers using Autonomo’s platform is growing, and the company continues to see momentum in sales, orders, backlog and recurring revenue.
According to the forecast published by Autonomo prior to the merger with SPAC, it was supposed to show revenues of $22 million in 2022 – a figure that now seems far from the actual results from the beginning of the year – and in 2025 its revenues were expected to amount to $574 million.
Vijo recorded in the first half of 2022 revenues that amounted to 2.1 million dollars and in the bottom line it recorded a loss of 95.7 million dollars.
As part of its merger with SPAC Autonomo raised an amount of 255 million dollars and since then managed to use part of the money to purchase two companies – Neura from Israel and The Floow from Great Britain. Noira, acquired for $50 million, developed technology that provides insights through artificial intelligence for smart city planners and operators of public transportation services, and The Floow provides solutions for auto insurance companies, and its purchase amount ranges from $31 to $69 million, subject to meeting targets .
As mentioned, the Autonomo share has fallen and erased most of its value since it started trading, although in the last month the trading trend in it was positive and it rose by 70% from the low it reached in mid-October.
A few months ago it became known that the Saudi West Investment Company became the largest shareholder in Autonomo, with a holding of over 20% of the company: Mithaq Capital increased its holding in the company in February-March at share prices of 75 cents to $1.3, compared to the current price of 39 cents .
Autonomo recently received a warning letter from Nasdaq management, according to which it does not meet the threshold required to continue trading due to a share price that is lower than one dollar. The company was given a period of 180 days to meet the threshold conditions again in order not to be deleted from trading on Nasdaq.