Germany-based DeepDrive bags €15M to develop ‘revolutionary’ drive units for EVs

Munich-based DeepDrive, a high-tech company that claims to offer revolutionary drive units for electric vehicles, announced on Tuesday that it has raised €15M in a Series A round of funding.

The round was co-led by top mobility investors BMW i Ventures and co-pace GmbH.

“We would like to express our deepest gratitude to our new and existing investors and business angels for believing in our vision and supporting our technology’s immense potential. We are committed to delivering exceptional results,” says the company in a LinkedIn post.

The startup is also supported by investors such as UVC Partners and Bayern Kapital. Additional investors include industry veteran Dr Peter Mertens (former board member and CTO of Audi and Volvo) and startup executive Jonas Rieke (COO of Personio).

“Rethinking electric mobility”

Founded in 2021, DeepDrive offers drive units for electric vehicles. A drive unit is a mechanical actuation system that converts electrical or hydraulic power into mechanical motion (often rotating). 

The company says its patented DeepDrive Dual Rotor technology extends car range by up to 20 per cent while lowering costs considerably, allowing the next wave of cheaper, more sustainable EVs.

DeepDrive’s drive units are small and torque dense, and can be incorporated into the wheels or used as a conventional central drive. They are designed for low-cost and large-scale manufacturing, while also providing optimum speed and efficiency. 

Currently, the startup is working on different research projects with eight of the top 10 automakers and are on schedule to bring the DeepDrive Dual Rotor to the market in large-scale series production by 2026.

DeepDrive says, “Over the past two years, we have been able to validate our groundbreaking drive technology and gained interest from most of the top automotive companies. But this is only the starting point.”

“Our goal is to introduce a new standard in the mobility industry, making it more sustainable with our radically innovative electric drive unit. Now we fully focus on industrialising our technology and securing first series commitments.”

DeepDrive’s team consists of over 30 specialists with expertise from top car companies. 

Its founders include Dr.-Ing. Alexander Rosen, Christopher Römmelmayer, Dean Petrovski, Felix Pörnbacher, Markus Domme, Maximilian Habersbrunner, and Stefan Ender.