Helsinki-based Virta, an electric vehicle (EV) charging platform, announced that it has secured €85M in growth funding to increase the impact of EVs on energy flexibility markets and accelerate growth in Europe and Asia-Pacific.
€65M in equity investment came from Virta’s existing investors led by Jolt Capital and co-invested by Future Energy Ventures backed by E.ON., Helen Ventures, Vertex Growth Fund, Finnish Industry Investment, Lahti Energy, Vantaa Energy, and Kotka Energy.
The remaining €20M comes from Business Finland, which offers innovation funding for companies and research organisations.
Jolt Capital’s CEO Jean Schmitt says, “Virta has demonstrated a rare ability to combine hypergrowth, technology leadership and mature operations, enabling sustainable, profitable scalability. We believe that Virta is now in pole position to win the race to platform market leadership in one of the fastest growing global industry sectors, i.e. EV charging and energy flexibility.”
Virta: Everything you need to know
Founded in 2013, Virta claims to be a global leader in developing smart electric vehicle charging services. The company says, “Our vision is a clean, carbon-free future with silent EVs driving emission-free down the street, and our passion, as an industry forerunner, is to fulfil that future.”
The company’s platform provides a cost-effective method for launching, scaling, and operating commercial services in an EV charging ecosystem, whether as a core business or a value-added service.
Currently, more than 1,000 professional EV charging businesses in 35 countries run their EV charging services on the Virta platform.
These charging network operators comprise one of the biggest public networks in Europe. Including roaming, the network offers EV drivers access to over 350,000 charging points.
Virta CEO, Jussi Palola, says, “The EV charging platform is mission critical for companies building global charging services. Our strong financial position enables us to secure the best growth capabilities for our partners.”
Capital utilisation
Virta claims its yearly sales increased by 112 per cent to €39M in 2022 (preliminary numbers), continuing the company’s trend of outpacing the industry average.
With the raised capital, the company aims to increase charging transactions by over 5X in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region by 2025.
Jussi Palola says, “Today, Virta has one of the leading platform patent portfolios with a focus on energy technologies such as vehicle-to-grid (V2G), autonomous vehicle charging, and operating complex billion-scale network operations. With the new funding, we are now ready to take the global lead in making EVs an integral part of energy flexibility markets.”
By the end of 2025, the Virta platform’s capacity is projected to increase from its current ca. 2,000 MW to 12,000-15,000 MW, or the equivalent of 10 large nuclear power reactors.
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