The two founders of telematics developer Dolphin Technologies , Harld Trautsche and Thomas Poschi have announced that they have purchased a majority of shares of their company back from other board members, thanks to the help of outside investors. Between them, they know own a controlling stake in the company, giving them much more influence over its future direction.
Dolphin Technologies, founded in 2001, has grown into a telematics power-house, even pioneering certain technologies like the pre-warming of a vehicle via your smartphone. A majority share of the company was bought by the MetaSystem Group back in 2007, leaving the two founders Trautsche and Poschi with 15 per cent of the business between them. However now those same two individuals have bought back a controlling stake in the firm.
In total, the two now control 76 per cent of the company, though they weren’t able to buy that alone. They leveraged their own private investment firm, Industrieliegenschaftenverwaltung AG, to gain the capital to do so.MetaSystem still retains a minority share of the firm moving forward.
Now at the helm of the company once again, the original founders are keen to expand the business, with plans to grow its telematics arm, especially when it comes to its relationship with other companies like insurers and auto-manufacturers. This should ensure that more of its products are included in cars as standard, or at the least are added at the point of buying an insurance premium.
Is this why the founders bought their old company back?
However perhaps the most exciting development that Dolphin Technologies is hoping to get in on, is eCall. This is a new system approved by the European Parliament, that will see all EU produced vehicles by 2018 come equipped with an automated telematics system that contacts the emergency services in the event of an accident. While some forms of this technology are available with some vehicles at the moment, by 2018 the EU wants every new car to have one, which means a big potential business source for the likes of Dolphin and its contemporaries.
If you were feeling a bit cynical of course, you might suggest that part of the reason for the buyback of Dolphin Technologies, was in the hope that it would be bought out by a much larger company in short order. Over the past couple of years we’ve seen massive telecoms providers and satellite navigation firms purchased telematics businesses for tens of millions of pounds. While there is no real suggestion that that’s what’s happening with Dolphin, perhaps the original founders know something we don’t.
About Dolphin Technologies
Dolphin Technologies was founded in 2001 in Vienna, Austria and quickly became a technology leader in the field of telematics. Today it produces a number of different products and has an annual turnover of around eight million euros.
