Solar-power-to-electric-wheels future-seekers Gridserve have secured an initial £200m equity stake from investment giant M&G’s infrastructure equity participant Infracapital.
For the five-year old e-charging and EV leasing innovators, the investment accelerates plans to advance their pioneering Sun-to-Wheel model, based on making clean power on battery-equipped solar PV farms, and distributing it over a national charging network of Electric Forecourts® and Electric Hubs.
After 2020’s first Electric Forecourt in Braintree, Essex, Gridserve now boasts a second in Norwich. In December the Bucks-based firm announced plans to open twenty Electric Hubs this year at existing service stations; six 350kW chargers at Thurrock on the M25 were opened this spring, in collaboration with station operators Moto.
Bought from Ecotricity in June last year, Gridserve’s Electric Highway is positioned as a leading public charging network, covering 85% of UK motorway service areas, and some of the UK’s busiest retail destinations. It sparks up over 100,000 EVs every month.
Infracapital’s initial investment this week frees Gridserve to pursue its target of 5,000 High Power Chargers installed by 2025, across both Electric Super Hubs and Electric Forecourts®.
Financial details of this week’s deal were not disclosed. This week’s equity stake by the M&G offshoot sits alongside privately held Gridserve’s continuing partnership with Mitsubishi HC Capital UK, and TPG Rise, the global impact investing platform of TPG, the Texas-based fund linked to rock star Bono and philanthropist Jeff Skoll, once eBay’s first president.
Both have increased their shareholding in Gridserve, as part of the Infracapital transaction.
Colossus of roads
Gridserve’s boss and founder is even named after an early British motorway service station, opened on the M1 in Bedfordshire in 1965.
Toddington Harper, once a pioneering developer of early stage UK solar farms, greeted the deal:
“We’re excited that our plans can accelerate, and it’s evident we now have the momentum we require. Infracapital are the perfect partners, as we move to the next level as a company. Their commitment to clean tech, infrastructure, and ESG gives our collective organisations deep-rooted synergies around a shared mission.
Gridserve estimates that every acre of UK solar farms it builds can generate enough low carbon electricity to drive a modern electric car pollution-free for around one million miles.
“Investment in the future of our planet has never been so important and the IPCC’s latest dire warnings solidify the reality that we need to take action as quickly as possible”, Harper added.
Andy Matthews, Infracapital’s head of greenfield, added; “We are delighted to have invested in Gridserve, as part of our ongoing drive to enable positive change and to make a meaningful contribution to the energy transition while delivering value to our investors”.
