Estonia-based EV charging startup VOOL announced that it has raised an additional €1.3M, bringing its total seed funding to €7.62M to date.
The total includes a €3M grant from the European Union’s EIC Accelerator innovation fund in 2022, €1.62M from the government of Estonia in 2023, and €1.7M from the first seed funding round in 2023.
VOOL says the investment will be used to scale up EV charger production in its local factory to meet growing demand. It will also fund the expansion of the company’s international sales and customer support team in other Nordic countries.
The funding round was led by Specialist VC, a venture capital firm focused on sustainable technology. New angel investors also participated in the funding round, including Taavi Veskimägi, the former chairman of the board of Estonia’s independent electricity and gas system operator Elering, and Kuldar Väärsi, the founder of Milrem Robotics.
The round also attracted a mix of influential real estate developers such as Kaamos Group and Astri Group, as well as technology investment firm Amalfi.
However, the biggest angel investors were VOOL’s own employees, who contributed 15 per cent to the round.
The company’s current angel investors include the former president of Estonia, Kersti Kaljulaid, the first CIO of Estonia and founder of the e-Residency programme, Taavi Kotka, the first employee of Pipedrive and the current chief architect at VOOL, Elar Nellis, and many others.
Producing chargers for tomorrow
VOOL was founded in 2018 and is currently operational in the Baltics, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The company employs 44 people. Its system is compatible with all-electric cars, chargers and software solutions.
According to Juhan Härm, co-founder and CEO of VOOL, even though most of Europe is connected to three phases of electricity, most EV chargers only use one phase. This means that they can only access a fraction of the full capacity of the grid.
“We use all three phases and automatically switch between them when needed. This way, we can offer reliable and sustainable automatic charging,” says Härm.
VOOL’s technology monitors the user’s electricity consumption and grid load. When consumption in any of the three phases exceeds the grid’s capacity, it will automatically switch to a less loaded phase.
It is currently developing new products to bring this three-phase technology to households. Serial production has started and the first chargers have been sent out to customers.
Efficient use of grid power
A McKinsey study estimates that Europe will need at least 29 million private charging points by 2030. This number is 77 times more than the number of charging stations available today.
This is where VOOL’s technology plays a big part in accelerating the energy transition.
The company’s technology uses the existing grid three times more efficiently than average. It allows real-estate developers to avoid additional costs associated with upgrading infrastructures and building new charging spots.
Read the orginal article: https://siliconcanals.com/news/startups/vool-bags-1-3m/
