Barcelona-based clean energy startup Tether has raised €1.3 million pre-Seed investment to accelerate its technology designed to maximise grid resilience and energy efficiency and expand partnerships.
The round was led by Draper B1 and K Fund, with backing from Enzo Ventures, Inclimo Climate Tech Fund, Zero4Climate, and COREangels Climate.
Founder and CEO Luis Medina Rivas said: “The recent blackout in Spain put front and centre the growing need for flexibility in Europe. Without urgent action, grid instability could cost EU economies up to €135 billion annually by 2050 – driven by rising energy costs, disrupted industry, and emergency energy measures.
“This funding round helps us seise the momentum, so we can expand our team and launch our product across the Nordic markets. This will help us accelerate the green energy transition without threatening the reliability of the grid.”
Founded in 2023 at Norrsken Barcelona by Luis Medina Rivas, Tether has developed a solution to leverage electric vehicles into grid-scale AI-coordinated battery assets. Tether’s technology learns the behavior of millions of private electric vehicles to coordinate their charging patterns, turning these cars into the “world’s largest, and cleanest, distributed battery” with capabilities to reinforce the power grid.
This way, Tether can reportedly reduce CO2 output up to 7,300 tonnes per MW, over the lifetime of a car. The company bids vehicle flexibility on balancing markets and earns extra revenue streams for partner OEMs and charge point operators, all while supporting grid stability with clean, distributed power.
Rivas has a background in Electrical and Renewable Energy Engineering, and has previously worked at Florida Power & Light, GE Power, GE Solar, and Northvolt. The remaining dev team consists of engineers, mathematicians and data scientists with backgrounds from Amazon and EIT InnoEnergy, and a shared passion for the green energy transition.
Raquel Bernal, Partner at Draper B1, added: “We are thrilled to join Tether in its mission to facilitate the energy transition by bridging electric vehicles and the energy market. From the beginning, we were impressed with the synergies between Luis and the team, their international vision, and their ability to open new paths in transforming markets.”
The funding will be used to expand Tether’s partnerships in the Nordics, Germany and Belgium; scale engineering and commercial teams; and deepen integrations with automakers and grid operators.
The company has several running pilots with major car manufacturers and charge point operators in its target markets. Currently, the company is partnering directly with EV manufacturers such as Audi and Zeekr
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/06/spanish-clean-energy-startup-tether-secures-e1-3-million-to-turn-evs-into-the-worlds-largest-connected-battery/
