Shell Ventures leads the $31 million series A investment round in "Electric Cars For Everyone" start-up

Shell Gas Station

Ample is a San Francisco-based startup co-founded by John de Souza and Khaled Hassounah. The company remains in stealth mode, which means that we don't really know what the business idea looks like.

The brief description says: It aims to solve the energy delivery challenge for electric transportation by utilizing autonomous robotics and smart-battery technology. Ample has created an economical, rapidly deployable and widely accessible platform that delivers a full charge to any electric car in minutes. Ample aims to make it possible to have “Electric Cars for Everyone”.

It's expected that Ample is working on some kind of battery boxes that will enable battery swapping (main purpose) or charging cars (secondary purpose). But how Ample intends to combine rapidly deployable, widely accessible and economical battery swapping remains unknown.

In the coming months, the company hints product deployment will occur at multiple locations.

For now, the $31 million series A financing round was led by Shell Ventures with participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, Repsol Energy Ventures, Hemi Ventures, and TRIREC.

Shell competitor BP, also invested in mobile charging company - FreeWire - this year (although not for battery swap), which makes us think that there is some business cases for such services.

From the press release:

"Ample, a technology company focused on solving the energy delivery challenge for electric cars, co-founded by Khaled Hassounah and John de Souza, announced today that it has closed a $31 million Series A round of financing. Shell Ventures led the investment round with participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, Repsol Energy Ventures, Hemi Ventures, and TRIREC. The financing will be used to deploy Ample’s technology in multiple locations over the coming months. Steve McGrath of Shell Ventures and James McIntyre of Moore Strategic Ventures will be joining Ample’s Board of Directors. “Building a scalable solution for charging electric vehicles requires a new approach to infrastructure, and partners who are committed to developing electrification as the new energy downstream,” said Khaled Hassounah, CEO and co-founder of Ample. Ample has invented an economical, rapidly deployable and widely accessible platform that delivers a full charge to any electric car in minutes. An alternative to traditional charging, Ample uses autonomous robotics and smart-battery technology, making it feasible for anyone to own an electric car regardless of driving needs, economic means, or geographic location. “EVs in the light – and medium duty sectors are steadily gaining market share,” said Steve McGrath, Investment Director of Shell Ventures. “Combining Ample’s technology with Shell’s existing retail network for re-fueling and our growing position in power could help us achieve our aspirations to grow a large new business in EV energy solutions.” “We have looked deeply into the electrification ecosystem,” said James McIntyre of Moore Strategic Ventures. “We believe Ample’s proprietary robotics and battery technology solution can help solve one of the largest constraints to wide-scale adoption of electric vehicles. We are excited to partner with the company, Shell Ventures and Repsol Ventures to help make Ample’s vision a reality.” As governments in Europe, Asia, America and other parts of the world impose tough emissions targets to meet the global climate change commitment, Ample was born out of the need for innovation to rapidly meet those goals. “As an integrated energy company, we join the growth of the electrification in the mobility sector,” said Luís Casado from Repsol, “and we’re looking forward to Ample’s near-term solution to meet Europe’s goals.”"

Source: venturebeat.com