Singapore-headquartered UnaBiz lined up an acquisition of Sigfox in a deal which will take the IoT specialist out of receivership and enable it to continue commercial activities.

In a statement, Sigfox explained massive IoT service provider UnaBiz was selected out of a total of nine bidders during insolvency proceedings at the Commercial Court of Toulouse. Financial details were not disclosed, although a report from news site Enterprise IoT Insights suggested the buyer is paying around €25 million.

UnaBiz, which operates the Sigfox networks in Singapore and Taiwan, pledged to safeguard 110 out of 174 employees in France.

Henri Bong, co-founder and -CEO of UnaBiz, insisted it will “definitely guarantee the French sovereignty of Sigfox”.

Sigfox has been undergoing insolvency proceedings in France since January after financial difficulties associated with Covid-19 (coronavirus) caused a slowdown in business activity.

The company is punting an unlicensed IoT network which competes with licensed LTE-M and NB-IoT options, and states its services are currently available in 75 countries. It has collaborated with UnaBiz since 2016, when the pair formed a strategic partnership with power company Engie to deploy the Sigfox IoT network in Singapore.

UnaBiz specialises in sensor product design, manufacturing and cloud platform services across a range of IoT technologies including Sigfox, LTE-M, NB-IoT and LoRa.

In October 2021, the company indicated it had deployed more than 1 million sensors in at least 25 countries globally.

Bong stated UnaBiz and Sigfox will “strive towards the convergence” of the various low-power IoT technologies.

“The new Sigfox will reinvent itself and collaborate with other IoT communication technologies to seize new market opportunities.”