Electric vehicle (EV) charging software firm ev.energy has extended its Series A financing round to US$12.8 million (£9.6 million), with this led by AcTern Ventures.
The new investment is to be used to scale ev.energy’s platform to additional partners, as well as to build new capabilities and products that intelligently manage EV charging.
Mira Inbar, partner at ArcTern Ventures, said: “We invested in ev.energy because they’re uniquely positioned; they have the broad geographic reach, flexible business model and customer-obsessed culture to truly scale smart charging.”
The expansion of the funding round follows the initial US$8.8 million ev.energy raised in 2021 with the intention of “aggressively” scaling its reach across energy utility partners, car manufacturers, charger partners and drivers.
The company pointed to its US activities, suggesting that as large regulated utilities such as National Grid and Southern California Edison launch new programmes with ev.energy, they can reward customers across the US with cash back for helping the grid by charging during off-peak hours and dynamically adapting to conditions in real time on the grid.
The company said it has seen growing interest from local community choice aggregators in California, having already completed a successful pilot with CCA Silicon Valley Clean Energy while recently partnering with MCE. It plans on entering into more similar partnerships later this year.
In the UK, ev.energy recently secured £295,000 to scale up what it said is the UK’s first commercially operating virtual power plant (VPP) using only EVs.
It has also previously partnered Jumptech to integrate its smart charging platform and Jumptech’s installer management platform, as well as working with Flexitricity to register the first domestic EV aggregated unit in the Balancing Mechanism.
Nick Woolley, CEO and co-founder of ev.energy, said he’s “delighted at the traction ev.energy has had with utilities and EV drivers”, with the company now to continue to fuel its growth as it looks to deliver smart EV charging across the world.
The round was also supported by Energy Impact Partners, Future Energy Ventures and other existing ev.energy investors.