Virta, a Vertex-backed portfolio company, has secured EUR85 million ($125.3 million) in growth funding.
Singapore-based venture capital firm Vertex Holdings, is itself, backed by Temasek Holdings.
The funding round for the Finland-based electric vehicle (EV) charging platform is among the largest within the EV space in recent years.
The round, which consists of EUR65 million in investments, was led by Virta’s existing investors such as Jolt Capital, Future Energy Ventures backed by E.ON., Helen Ventures and Vertex Growth Fund. The remaining EUR20 million was from Business Finland, which offers innovation funding for companies and research organizations.
According to Virta, the new funds will be used to grow its charging transactions by over fivefold in Asia Pacific (APAC) and Europe by 2025. Virta is also said to expand its operations in to Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam in the next 24 months. In addition, the company will be introducing its smart charging capabilities – currently used in 20 European markets – to APAC.
“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,” says Virta CEO, Jussi Palola.
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“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,” he adds.
In the process, the Virta platform capacity is estimated to grow from the current 2,000 MW to 12,000-15,000 MW, the size of 10 large nuclear power plants, by the end of 2025.
“Our strategy is to fund European growth deep-tech companies looking for a worldwide leadership. Virta has demonstrated a rare ability to combine hypergrowth, technology leadership and mature operations, enabling sustainable profitable scalability,” says Jolt Capital’s CEO Jean Schmitt. “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, ie EV charging and energy flexibility.”
