Estonian electrical vehicle (EV) charging startup VOOL closes an additional seed investment round of €1,3M. Additionally, VOOL received a grant of €1,62M from the government of Estonia, bringing its total funding to €7,62M. The company was founded in 2018 by energy experts Juhan Härm (CEO), Sander Vahtras (CPO) and Hindrik Kilter (CTO).
VOOL’s technology uses the existing grid three times more efficiently than average without causing an overload, providing reliable and cost-efficient charging for both business and private customers.
Thanks to the new investment, VOOL is set to increase EV charger production in a local factory and expand its international sales and customer support team in the Nordic countries. Additionally, VOOL is continuing its development of new products to utilise its three-phase technology in households.
Expanding the grid
“Currently, you still have access to only a fraction of the full capacity of the grid, even though the whole of Europe is connected to three phases of electricity,” explains the co-founder and CEO of VOOL, Juhan Härm. “We use all three phases and automatically switch between them when needed. This way, we can offer reliable and sustainable automatic charging,” he adds. “We just recently started serial production, and the first chargers have now been sent out to customers,” said Härm.
If consumption in any of the three phases becomes too high, its technology tells VOOL chargers to switch consumption to a less loaded phase. Electrical fuses will never trip. “With further development of new products, it will be possible to use the technology for the whole household,” says Härm. VOOL’s technology monitors your electricity consumption and grid load and switches consumers over to another phase all on its own.
Gathering forces
The investment round was led by Specialist VC and attracted a mix of influential real estate developers, such as Kaamos Group and Astri Group, as well as investment company Amalfi. New angel investors participating in the funding round include Taavi Veskimägi (the former chairman of the board of Estonia’s independent electricity and gas system operator Elering), and Kuldar Väärsi (founder of Milrem Robotics).
However, the biggest angel investors were VOOL’s own employees, giving 15% of the investment round. VOOL’s current angel investors include the former president of Estonia, Kersti Kaljulaid, the first CIO of Estonia and founder of the e-Residency programme, Taavi Kotka, the first employee of Pipedrive and the current chief architect at VOOL, Elar Nellis, and many others.
Why do they all believe in the project? Research from McKinsey indicates that by 2030, Europe will need a minimum of 29 million private charging points, a 77-fold rise from current levels. VOOL’s software enables real-estate developers to cut the expenses related to infrastructure improvements and new charging installations, thus speeding up the most important and expensive energy transition of our lives. Additionally, VOOL optimises cost-efficiency, tracking electricity prices to ensure EVs are charged economically and within a specified timeframe – reducing costs by up to 90%, as Härm promises.
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