Because the Services will not snore on Octo Telematics
Behind Octo, a leading company in the production of black boxes, which processes and provides smart analytics collected in real time from connected vehicles, there is also a Russian fund. All the details on members, financial statements, technological alliances and partnerships
There is not only the Kaspersky case in Italy, focus also on Octo Telematics (and the Russian fund Renova in the shareholding structure).
The evolution of the conflict in Ukraine could “jeopardize the reliability and effectiveness” of information technologies provided by companies linked to Russia . This is the alarm launched by the National Cybersecurity Agency in mid-March. So much so that on March 18 the Council of Ministers voted the decree law which provides for the diversification of information systems and IT services of public administrations.
So soon the 2700 Pa that rely on Kaspersky software could replace it.
But in reality there is also another tech company that manages millions of Italian data with Russian ties: Octo Telematics.
"Octo, owned in part by the Renova fund (since 2018 by Octo Telematics of London), an energy and telecommunications giant founded by Viktor Vekselberg (entrepreneur of Jewish family and Ukrainian origin) still had more than 48% of Muscovite shareholders , which employs 134,000 people all over the world ”, reports La Verità today.
“Octo of an Italian foundation […] has an office in Rome and is one of the major European big data companies in the automotive sector, specialized in the so-called black boxes for vehicles, therefore in the supply of sensitive information to insurance companies. In 2019, a presence of black boxes was calculated in 23.4% of auto policies, with peaks of 60% for some provinces in the South. the current company, officially English), an immense amount of sensitive data concerning our driving habits, but also, in anticipation of the electrification of the sector, of software for the management of electric mobility ", adds the analyst Sergio Barlocchetti on newspaper directed by Maurizio Belpietro.
But Opto's management has already faced concerns over Russian ties. After an attempted stock exchange listing on Piazza Affari went up in smoke, in 2018 President Peace and co-founder Sbianchi increased their stake, diluting Renova's control. So as to make it less dependent on the Russian fund and not to incur the sanctions imposed by the United States against Russia.
All the details.
WHAT IS OCTO TELEMATICS
Founded in 2002, Octo Telematics is based in Rome. The other companies of the Cto Spa group are based in the United Kingdom (London and Buckingham), in Italy (Rome, Milan and Reggio Emilia) in the United States (Newton and Massachussets), in Brazil (San Paolo), in Spain (Madrid), in Germany (Stuttgart) and in France (Paris). The company has 350 employees and 400 collaborators.
It is a global leader in insurance telematics and smart mobility and in the analysis of data from connected IoT devices.
Octo is the largest provider of telematics solutions for car sharing and rental in Italy and the fourth in Europe, managing over 280 thousand vehicle rentals per month, with a market share of 3% / 60% in Italy, 6% in Europe .
Its strength is a scalable proprietary platform adaptable to any business and algorithms based on AI and proprietary machine learning. The business ranges from InsurTech to Smart Cities, passing through the management of rental and sharing car fleets and tomorrow also to the control of industrial assets.
DATA MANAGEMENT OF BLACK BOXES
In Italy it manages the data of the insurance black boxes, the Eni Enjoy fleet platform including the Keyless and sanitization technology (used by NASA, which can also be used for anti-Covid environments), is part of the Move-In service of the Lombardy Region and won the Call Hub regional tender with the Cemp project (together with Dell'Orto, Energica and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) to develop electric, safe and connected mobility for motorcycles and minicars.
6 MILLION VEHICLES CONNECTED
As stated on its website , today it has over 6 million connected users. It manages the largest global database of telematics data, with over 280 billion miles of driving data collected and 480,000 insurance claims and events analyzed. It also handles over 400,000 vehicle rentals per month.
GUIDED BY NICOLA VERATELLI
Since 2019 Octo has been led by Nicola Veratelli who has developed "Vision Zero": a development plan that aims at zero pollution, zero traffic and zero accidents, as horizons for sustainable and connected mobility.
“Big data if they are not translated into 'actionable' data are useless. Thanks to our resources and our proprietary algorithms based on artificial intelligence and machine learning, we are able to do this: interpret and process data from whatever source they come from: today from mobility and living, that is, from the home, and tomorrow. of people. And this, in my opinion, is the enabler to create the world of Smart Cities ”, Nicola Veratelli told Askanews .
Prior to leading Octo, Veratelli was Hertz's senior vice president of Operations & Supply Chain. The latter is the largest car rental company in the world, Octo's customer today.
EQUITY INVESTMENTS
To date, Octo Group Spa controls 100% of the following companies: Octo Telematics Spa; Octo Telematics Uk Ltd; Octo Americas Group Inc and Octo France.
THE ACQUISITIONS
In 2016 the Octo Group completed the purchase of Omoove srl, a leading company in the car sharing sector in Europe. Thus becoming the first telematics provider to offer all the three most relevant solutions for connected vehicles.
In 2020 the group completed the integration process of Nebula Systems Ltd, a company of which it acquired control in the last quarter of 2019. The latter specializes in the collection and analysis of vehicle diagnostic data.
THE NUMBERS 2020
The company closed the 2020 financial statements with a profit of 13.7 million euros. However, the consolidated financial statements of the group show a loss for the year of 7 million euros.
Revenues in 2020 amounted to 11.6 million (up from 9.5 million in 2019). Operating costs decreased during the year (from 19.8 million to 18.3 million).
The operating result, Ebit, was negative for 9.9 million euros.
CUSTOMERS
Octo's main customers include: Hertz, Ald, Fca, Acea, Axa, Renault, Mitsubishi, Sara, Toyota, Enel, Audi, Enjoy etc.
THE PARTNERSHIP WITH FORD FOR EUROPE
In March Octo Telematics announced a new agreement with Ford Motor Company. The announcement follows the agreement for the North American market signed in July 2021. Thanks to the data collected from Ford connected vehicles, Octo will be able to extend its telematics services for the insurance sector and for that of analytical services in the United Kingdom, in Italy, in Germany, France and Spain.
Therefore, under the terms of the agreement, Octo will integrate Ford data into its data sources, thereby strengthening its position as a leader in the European market, where Octo already manages 43.5% of Usage Based policies ( UBI).
ENJOY TECHNOLOGICAL PARTNER
Since 2013 Octo has been a technological partner of Enjoy, the Vehicle Sharing service provided by Eni. Enjoy is active in Milan, Turin, Rome, Florence and Bologna.
THE BOD
The board of directors of Octo make up: Sir John Wilfred Peace (president); Fabio Sbianchi (Co-founder and Director); Nicola Veratelli; Derek Whitworth; Igor Cheremikin; Marco Musetti; Pekka Viljakainen; Marco Lippi and David Metzger.
RUSSIAN MEMBERS
Today Octo's shareholding is made up of the Russian holding company Renova of Viktor Vekselberg which controls about 48% through the Luxembourg fund Nes Investments and is 25% owned by the president Sir John Peace, by the co-founder Fabio Sbianchi; about 26% is from the Anglo-Russian fund Pamplona, through the Luxembourg fund Phm Topco 23 Sarl. Gapwin holding English holds about 20%.
The remaining 2.72% is in the hands of the Roman Clexidra Srl.
Finally, the group holds 2.28% of the share capital (equal to 3 million euros).
AMERICAN PROBLEMS FOR THE RENOVA FUND
As Bebeez reconstructed, "Renova initially bought 100% of Octo Telematics in February 2014 from the Charme fund (owned by Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, ed ) and from its co-investors Amadeus Capital Partners and Keensight Capital, with the management it had reinvested for the 5%. Renova subsequently sold a stake to the Pamplona fund. Finally, in April 2018, Peace and Sbianchi had increased their stake by 20% , buying the stake from Renova, in order to make Octo Telematics independent from the Russian group and therefore not incur the new sanctions imposed by the US against Russia and therefore even against Renova ".
Since 2018, the Russian fund Renova has therefore agreed to remain under 50% of Octo Telematics.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/servizi-octo-telematics/ on Tue, 29 Mar 2022 13:33:31 +0000.