⚡ €195M+ for EV startups, Tesla opens Canadian network

Happy Monday. This is Electric Avenue. The EV newsletter that’s as refreshing as a cup of peach ice tea by the pool. Stay peachy, y’all 🍑

Here’s what we have for you today:

• EV startup funding news 📈

• 3 Links 🔗

• Meme of the week 🤡

Let's get into it!

EV Startup Funding News 📈

It's Money Monday 🤑  - this month we've seen €195M+ raised by EV Charging startups. Here's who secured the bag 💰:

• PIONIX raised a €5M Seed funding round led yabeo and Pale blue dot, as well as other investors. The German startup is the initiator of EVerest, an Open Source software stack for EV charging stations. The goal of EVerest is to enable a more standardized and accelerated development of embedded software for EV charging stations. We recently covered some interesting V2G test results published by EVerest (Link)

• dcbel secured a strategic investment by Volvo Cars. The Canadian startup is working on launching the dcbel r16, a bidirectional DC charger + home energy manager. The r16 functions as a shared inverter for DC-coupled solar systems, energy storage as well as V2G and V2H charging for emergency backup power. We are keeping an eye on the r16 as it could be one of the DC V2G charging stations that will become eligible for PG&Es V2X pilot program in Northern California later this year.

• Jolt Energy secured €150M in funding from Infrared Capital to bring its battery-buffered DC chargers (up to 320kW charger + up to 200kWh battery) to more cities.

• Tritum secured $40M in capital from existing investors to fund working capital needed to scale production volumes, product development and grow services operations around the world.

Take-away: These investments represent three big trends within the EV charging industry: (Battery-buffered) DC fast charging (Jolt, Tritium), unified and modular software systems (PIONIX/EVerest) and bidirectional charging (dcbel).

To see all E-Mobility companies that raised money in the last months, check out our EV&Charging funding database.

Do you know any E-mobility companies that raised recently? -> Send us a link to [email protected]!

3 Links 🔗

• Youtube x Polestar: Since debuting in 2020 the Polestar 2 has received 15 Over-the-air (OTA) updates. The model was the first car globally to launch with the Google built-in Infotainment system. The promise was that it would enable a broad range of Android apps to be usable in vehicles. The recent release of the Youtube app marks the first-ever video streaming app coming to Google built-in cars - 3 years after launch. Why so late Google and Polestar?

• ChargeGPT is here: German startup Fronyx announced the Beta launch of ChargeGPT this week. This AI-based conversational assistant can help you select the best possible charging station around you. Try it for yourself: https://chargegpt.fronyx.io/

• Supercharger opening in Canada: According to an announcement by the Canadian government Tesla will open up to 750 Superchargers for non-Tesla vehicles by end of 2025, likely through the Tesla Magic Dock adapter. This is in line with the agreement that Tesla made with the US government, to open up to 3,500 US-based Superchargers for non-Tesla vehicles by late 2024. But just like in the US, it only represents part of the full network. The remaining Superchargers will likely remain exclusive to Tesla’s own vehicles as well as companies that adopt its NACS connectors.

Meme of the Week 🤡

That's a wrap for this week! Let us know how you feel:

Reader Review of the Week

Selected ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️ Freakin´ awesome on ⚡ The Secret feature that EV companies don't want you to know about and wrote:

"appreciate that you put a big light on V2X. thank you very much. very happy to see the work we did 1 years ago is well passed on to the next generation globally."

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. The Electric Avenue team may hold investments in the companies discussed. d