IRP Systems Gets $17M To Bring Electric Mobility To Mass Market

E-mobility tech startup IRP Systems has landed $17 million for its Series B round to help accelerate its integration into auto platforms.

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The company, which makes powertrain products like controllers, motors and battery management systems, wants to speed up the adoption of electric mobility and bring it to the mass market, according to CEO Moran Price.

“Today I think we see the very strong consensus to electrify anything and go for clean energy and with a very strong (regulatory) force in some places in the world … but it’s still an early adopter market,” Price said in an interview with Crunchbase News. “It’s still not mass market. And with our technology, which is high performing and affordable, we’re helping the automotive (companies) remove the cost barrier through technology and enable it to become much more popular and significant.”

IRP Systems, which is based in Israel, was originally founded as a powertrain aerospace company, but quickly pivoted to meet the demand of the automotive industry.

Price called aerospace a “challenging and demanding industry.” Everything on planes has to be compact, lightweight and safe.

“Our technology evolved to meet those very challenging requirements, some of the best ideas and IT were born in this application. About three years ago we started to see the increasing demand for similar technologies like we developed,” Price said, adding that the company realized what it had developed for aerospace was a good fit for the mobility market.

“It’s also helping us that we have a background in safety critical, and reliable systems,” she added.

IRP Systems’ technology can be used for items ranging from electric mopeds to electric and hybrid vehicles. Price wouldn’t disclose which companies IRP Systems counts as customers, but said it’s working with “leading players” in the electric vehicle industry and global vehicle manufacturers.

China’s Fosun RZ Capital led the Series B round, which included participation from firms like JAL Ventures and Entrée Capital.

Illustration Credit: Li-Anne Dias