Being a public company will ease their minds, assuring that we are not just a startup that is about to be acquired, but rather a large, stable, and transparent company,” Volkow said. Volkow realizes that by going public, the company will change significantly and be obliged to issue public reports. “My former company was acquired by F5 and being publicly traded changes everything — it instills discipline, deadlines, and commitment to revenue. We have reached a maturity level where we can follow up on our predictions and we know what our machine is capable of producing. Taking into account all the risks, we possess the stability and ability to make predictions and meet them. Naturally, we were a bit wary of it, but we think now is a very good time for us to do it.” There are quite a few SPACs that are active in the U.S. market and are searching for qualified companies to merge with. It is estimated that half of all IPOs this year will be in the form of a SPAC, and there is an accompanying fear that many of them won’t be of the highest quality. “Luckily we had several options, with several SPACs that approached us. Of them, we chose this one because it is run by very experienced, smart, and patient people, who will be a great addition to our board of directors. The people who are acquiring us have experience both in the software and SPAC worlds. They are not financiers but are in it for the long run and we felt it was the right decision. Six months ago, I hadn’t thought it would be a good option, but the market is changing and this is a fine, legitimate, opportunity, especially for automotive companies like us, who require lots of capital and a long runway,” Volkow said. “We established Software Acquisition Group Inc. II to invest in a world-class software company that is positioned to be the leading player in a market that has enormous potential,” Jonathan Huberman, the CEO of Software Acquisition Group Inc. II said. “We reviewed multiple potential partners and Otonomo stood out as the clear choice. Otonomo management not only identified the significant opportunity that exists in the automotive data space, but they have also achieved early market leadership and are positioned for impressive growth.”