The destiny of Sigfox, the French flagship of the Internet of Things (IoT), will continue to be written under the aegis of a former employee of the company based in Labège. In this case Henri Bong, whose Singaporean company UnaBiz was appointed on Thursday by the Toulouse commercial court to take over the reins of Sigfox, placed in receivership at the end of January by this same court. UnaBiz, founded and run by two French entrepreneurs, is a company specializing in the Internet of Things which today operates the French company’s 0G network in Singapore and Taiwan.
In the running for the takeover of Sigfox against eight other potential buyers, UnaBiz had been the favorite for several weeks in the eyes of the company’s CSE. For some of the Sigfox employees, the company chaired by Henri Bong will be able to take advantage of his “perfect knowledge” of the “problems of Sigfox and its ecosystem” to put the Toulouse company back on track. The CSE also boasted, in an open letter published on April 12, “a corporate culture similar to that of Sigfox, which reduces the risk of a talent drain” to justify its position.
Still, the Singaporean registration was singled out by some takeover candidates. In particular, they invoked the painful memory of the takeover of the Grenoble-based company Cycleo – another French IoT nugget – by the Californian company Semtech in 2012, and the resulting technology transfer to justify fears that the takeover of Sigfox by UnaBiz does not result in a new transfer of French technology abroad. To put an end to the criticism, Henri Bong had nevertheless said he was “ready to study the relocation of the headquarters of UnaBiz to France” at the end of last week.
A transition on familiar ground
The CEO of UnaBiz had also assured that a French subsidiary – UnaBiz SAS – “has already been registered at the beginning of the week [dernière, NDLR] in the commercial register of Toulouse”. An argument that seems to have hit the mark on the side of the Toulouse Commercial Court. The latter thus validated the takeover offer made by UnaBiz. The company is said to have undertaken to retain 110 employees out of the 180 employed by Sigfox SA, as well as the 16 employees of Sigfox France.
This is a relief for Sigfox employees. “As UnaBiz is already at the heart of the Sigfox ecosystem through its activities as a Sigfox operator in Singapore and Taiwan and as an IoT solutions provider, the transition should be quick and simplified,” they said at the end of the procedure. .
As a reminder, after a few years of turmoil, the French flagship Sigfox was placed in receivership by the same court at the end of January. The company, whose IoT 0G technology is mainly used for asset tracking services (i.e. the location and logistics tracking of objects) or connectivity backup, has borne the brunt of the health crisis. , the shortage of semiconductors and – above all – increased competition in recent years, forcing it to revise its ambitions downwards and sell off several of its international networks.