Hubject, a Germany-based payment platform for electronic vehicle charging, raised “millions of euros” (€1m = $1.2m) yesterday from its seven corporate shareholders, which include car manufacturers BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen.
Industrial product and appliance makers Bosch and Siemens as well as energy providers EnBW and Innogy, a subsidiary of utility RWE, also contributed to the round.
Founded in 2012, Hubject has developed technology that connects electronic vehicle charging station operators and e-mobility service providers to give drivers easy access to charging infrastructure.
Drivers can use the platform to find and pay at one of the 61,000 charging points in its system. The company’s coverage mostly includes Europe and Japan but the company plans to use the investment to expand into the US and China.
Hubject was started as a joint venture between BMW, Bosch, Daimler, EnBW, Innogy and Siemens with Volkswagen investing in December 2016. Details of funding have not been made available.
Thomas Daiber, co-chief executive of Hubject, said: “With the expansion of our company, we are taking our vision to new continents. We want to create a digital ecosystem for new emobility services from which everybody can benefit.
“Our team is very excited about the challenge.”