BMW CONTINUES TO SUPPORT THIS BULGARIAN STARTUP’S $13M A-ROUND AS PART OF ITS EV LOVE AFFAIR.

Systems for managing electric vehicle charging operations, billing, energy, drivers, and even fleets are often end-to-end solutions. As a result, EV charging service providers may maximise the revenue from their business.

Over the past few years, there have been an increasing number of players. Shell recently chose the Israeli startup Driivz to operate its charging and smart energy management platform. To date, Driivz has raised $23.1 million in venture capital funding. The Dutch band Greenflux made €11 million. Then there are ChargeLab ($20.4 million raised) from Canada, Monta ($50 million raised from Denmark), and EV Energy ($13.5 million raised from UK).

Ampeco is a firm with its own EV charging management platform that was founded in Sofia, Bulgaria, but now has operations throughout all of Europe. Up to this point, it hasn’t caught the attention of venture capitalists.

Today, however, brings the announcement that Ampeco has raised $13 million in a series A round headed by BMW iVentures, bringing its total funding to date to $16 million. The business intends to use the funds for both product expansion and further expansion into North America.

Along with a few angel investors, the Series A round also included Berlin-based Cavalry Ventures and Bulgaria’s LauncHub Ventures, which last year unveiled a €70 million fund, a sizeable sum for the South Eastern Europe region.

It’s important to keep in mind that BMW iVentures has experience in this field and has backed several previous competitors. It invested in Chargemaster and Chargepoint before they were publicly traded on the NYSE (acquired by BP).

Ampeco provides EV charging providers with a service that addresses the needs of home, commercial, and public fleets. Instead of being bound to a single hardware vendor, the platform’s goal is to allow consumers manage chargers at scale and then pick and choose/mix and match from hardware partners. Additionally, it is compatible with building management systems, smart metres, and renewable energy sources.

“There is an enormous opportunity for EV charging providers to create and scale a lucrative business using innovative technologies,” said Orlin Radev, CEO of AMPECO, in a statement.

Ampeco claims that four years after its launch, it has attracted 120 clients in 45 regions, surpassed 62,000 charging outlets, and more than doubled in size to over 80 individuals.

Access to EV charging infrastructure is now more important than ever, according to Baris Guzel, Partner at BMW I Ventures. Clients can easily start and expand their own EV charging networks thanks to Ampeco’s complete and hardware-independent software solution.