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EV Charging Is A Hot Spot For Venture Deals

Illustration of electric car plugged into an outlet.

The number of electric vehicle owners today is dwarfed by a secondary group. This would be the untold millions who say they’d like one, but are waiting until costs go down, driving range goes up, and charging stations are more widely accessible.

On that last point, venture investors and startups are scaling up efforts to improve infrastructure. Over the past few quarters, scores of companies in the EV charging space have raised funding, much of it seed and early stage.

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The latest funding announcement comes from Toronto-based SWTCH, a provider of EV charging setup and tools for multifamily buildings, which closed on $13 million in equity and debt investment. The financing includes a $10 million Series A round led by the venture capital arm of Aligned Climate Capital and a $3 million credit facility from Silicon Valley Bank.

In a statement accompanying the funding announcement, SWTCH CEO Carter Li said the company chose to focus on apartment buildings because “improving access to EV charging infrastructure in multi-family buildings is critical to enabling widespread EV adoption.” He estimates that 80 percent of EV charging occurs at home and 30 percent of homes in North America are multifamily.

In addition to SWTCH, several other seed through late-stage startups in the electric vehicle charging space have announced funding rounds in recent quarters. We compiled a list of companies that raised funding in 2021 and 2022 below:

 

For U.S.-focused startups, federal stimulus is a factor. The Biden administration said in December that $5 billion will be available to states to fund electric vehicle charging stations over the next five years.

Yet while funds are flowing to the space, exits have been spotty. Shares of ChargePoint, a heavily venture-backed provider of electric vehicle charging infrastructure that went public last year, are trading far below their highs. Volta, another charging infrastructure company that went public via SPAC, has also been a disappointing performer.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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