With £4M funding, this Manchester startup wants to install rapid EV chargers in the city

Iduna, an innovative car charging scheme based in Greater Manchester bagged over £4 million in funding in just six days recently. The Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure plc is one of the fastest investments of this size to be filled on Abundance, a leading ethical investment crowdfunding platform in the UK.

Installs 50 new rapid electric vehicle chargers

The investment came from 1,368 people across the UK showing that they are interested in contributing to the decarbonisation process of the transport sector. The investment offer consisted of 5-year secured debentures – regulated and tradable bonds, which pay 9% interest per year. Two-thirds of the investments were made through the Abundance Innovative Finance ISA.

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The new funds will be used by Iduna to accelerate the switch to EVs across Greater Manchester. The company will install 50 new rapid electric vehicle chargers in the region. These new EV chargers will be installed at high-traffic locations across Greater Manchester. The chargers will run on 100% renewable electricity supplied by Octopus Energy. It move is the first phase of Iduna’s programme to build over 160 charging points in the city by the end of 2022.

Asif Ghafoor, CEO, Iduna, said: “We are thrilled with the success of our first fund raise through Abundance and look forward to doing more like this in the future. This shows that people across the UK want to participate directly in solutions to the climate emergency, and recognise the urgent need to decarbonise the UK’s transport sector. Our EV chargers will use the latest charging technology and data analytics to help Greater Manchester achieve its strategy to be carbon neutral by 2038.”

Bruce Davis, co-founder and Managing Director, Abundance investment said: “With their enthusiastic response our customers showed they want to back the innovative companies like Iduna who are creating a well-designed charging network to support the shift away from fossil fuel-powered vehicles and leading the way in tackling the climate emergency. As the world’s leaders gather virtually at this week’s Climate Summit, we need to remember that ordinary people also need to be empowered to act alongside their governments and that mobilising your money to do good can be an effective force for change.”

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Carbon neutral mission of Greater Manchester

The UK transport sector accounts for a third of UK carbon emissions, most of which is caused by road transport. The government has brought forward the ban on sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030 in efforts to tackle that. Greater Manchester is on the mission to be a carbon-neutral region by 2038.

How does it manage to achieve this?

As part of this, Transport for Greater Manchester’s aim is that half of all journeys are made using public and active transport (walking and cycling) by 2040. Currently, Greater Manchester residents make 1.2 billion car journeys every year and this should be reduced and decarbonised.

Availability of off-street parking for home charging is low, and it is important to increase the number of public chargers to achieve this goal. As of now, Greater Manchester lags behind the national average for EV adoption. This is where Iduna’s investment aims to solve the major barrier to the adoption of range anxiety and fast/rapid charger accessibility.

Largest public charging network

Founded by Adrian Gray and Asif Ghafoor, Iduna Infrastructure Limited acquired Amey Map Services, which already delivers and manages public-funded chargers on behalf of TfGM. These are operated under the brand Be.EV, an open network of pay-as-you-go chargers with an optional membership scheme.

Currently, there are nearly 130 chargers in the network, making it the region’s largest provider of public charging capability. The new chargers funded by the investment will also be operated under the Be.EV brand, which Iduna aims to develop into a unified and market-leading network across Greater Manchester.

Source: uktech