Go Eve, a Dublin-based electric vehicle charging company working with University College Dublin and Imperial College London, announced €3.5 million in funding secured in its first round.
Investors include the Pearl Family Office, Carter Gem, Automotive Ventures Inc., Kero Development Partners and Cur8 Capital.
"Given the importance of climate action and sustainability it is fantastic to see Go Eve close this €3.5 million seed funding round to enable it to take the next steps in bringing its innovation electric charging solution to market," said Tom Flanagan, director of enterprise and commercialism at UCD.
Go Eve
Founded in 2021, Go Eve's technology was invented by a team of academics and researchers under the guidance of Professor Robert Shorten at the UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering - the same technology was further advanced at the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London.
The firm aims to make high-power, rapid DC charging cost-competitive with lower-power AC charging using newly-designed 'DockChain' technology, extending the reach of single rapid chargers to serve multiple parking spaces.
The software used by Go Eve then manages a virtual queue, scheduling and delivering power to each connected EV. The technology was successfully trialled at the Imperial College London campus last November.
Conventional EV chargers only allow one or two vehicles to use a rapid charging station at a time, creating 'down time' and wasting charging potential as cars are moved off and on to the charger.
However, this problem is solved by extending the reach of a single rapid DC charger to a 'daisy-chain' of low-cost charging terminals.
Go Eve's future
The funding raised in the first round will be used to secure the company's supply chains, scale production and install the first DockChain systems. Go Eve plans to ensure volume availability in Europe and the US before next year.
"Go Eve offers a technology that can transform EV charging," said its CEO, Hugh Sheehy. "For EVs to replace fossil-fuel cars, charging needs to be faster, lower cost, more widely available and most efficiently use available grid capacity.
"Our technology does all these things, which is why we see a future with rapid charging in every space."
"We currently have capacity for hundreds of installations now - we're prepared for thousands next year. We anticipate strong pickup for DockChain, particularly for fleet operators and in destination car parks."