Volta Charging is an EV charging company with a new approach. Instead of charging drivers to charge, it supplies them with free electricity. How does it do that? By selling advertising on its chargers, which are all located in high traffic retail and residential areas. To date, the company has raised over $60 million from investors since its inception in 2010. It has just completed a new funding round that raised $35 million from investors such as GE Ventures, Orsted Venture, Nautilus Venture Partners, and Idinvest. It has now joined Invenergy Future Fund and Activate Capital in supporting Volta Charging and its ad supported business model.
In a statement, Scott Mercer, CEO of Volta Charging tells CleanTechnica, “This esteemed group of investors, who share our vision, are each focused on advancing energy, transportation, technology, or media platforms worldwide and we are excited to benefit from these relationships as we continue to advance mobility infrastructure worldwide. With this influx of capital, we will be immediately able to respond to the respective demand from advertisers, EV drivers, and landlords as we add meaningful value to communities nationwide.”
Alexei Andreev, managing director of Autotech Ventures adds, “Since we invest exclusively in transportation technology, we spend a lot of time researching electric vehicle charging technology. Out of all of the EV charging network startups we have seen, Volta has the most elegant business model, which decouples EV adoption and revenue generation. Instead of selling electrons to EV owners, Volta sells advertising space and marketing analytics to media customers. We’re excited to welcome and participate alongside the new round of incoming investors that will help Volta rapidly grow its footprint across the US.”
The company currently has 1000 charging locations in the US and is planning to expand that to 2,000 locations by the end of this year, thanks in part to the successful completion of this latest funding round. “Volta brings us an opportunity to elegantly advance the intersection of two of our most important sectors – energy and transportation,” Anup Jacob, managing director of Activate Capital, told Tech Crunch. “By leveraging sponsorship to underwrite free charging and infrastructure, Volta has created a unique model to accelerate the future of mobility.”
In addition to catering to upscale retailers, Volta Charging also actively seeks out state and municipal partners who are concerned about climate change and want to promote electric vehicles in order to reduce their carbon footprint. To date, the company has provided enough free electricity for 22 million miles of driving. Those miles driven on electricity have kept 9 million pounds of carbon dioxide out of the skies over America.
Tech Crunch notes that outdoor advertising is one on the few remaining non-internet based opportunities for retailers to get their message in front of customers. With the market for electric cars predicted to increase exponentially over the next few years, Volta Charging’s ad-supported business model is poised for significant growth.
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