bp invests €7.5m in Service4Charger

bp ventures has invested €7.5m in the Service4Charger GmbH, a Berlin-based EV charging service provider. It is leading Service4Charger’s €10m Series A funding round, which includes participation of €2.5m from Smart Energy Innovationsfonds.

Service4Charger’s in-house trained and digitally equipped electrical engineers, ‘Mobile Heroes’, focus on the installation and maintenance of charging stations for electric cars throughout Germany, for various charging scenarios, such as charging in fleet depots, at public charging stations and at home. It has grown to a team of over 85 employees and is already represented in 25 cities, from Aachen to Berlin and from Hamburg to Munich.

Lucas Althammer, CEO of Service4Charger, says, “The new capital will enable Service4Charger to expand into additional markets and add more local operational staff and Service4Charger mobile heroes to our team across Germany. In this way, we are doing our part to expand the charging infrastructure for e-vehicles, which is critical to the transition to a lower-carbon European economy. We welcome the funding from, and collaboration with, bp and its German brand, Aral, as well as Energie360°, as we work together to drive the electrification of mobility.”

In May 2023, fully electric cars represented 17.3% of all new registrations in Germany. The EU is targeting 30m EVs on the road by 2030. Highly skilled electrical engineers are needed to ensure charging infrastructure can be rolled out at required pace to match the demand and maintained to avoid charge point downtime.

Gareth Burns, Vice President of bp ventures, adds, “As bp pulse rolls out EV charging, it is essential that we have the right skill sets and expertise to make charging installations an efficient process and to service our growing network of EV charge points. The investment into Service4Charger brings bp a collaboration that can enable rapid and reliable installation and servicing of EV charge points in Germany.”

Electric vehicle charging is one of bp’s transition growth engines. Today, bp offers 22,000 EV charging points and aims to have more than 100,000 worldwide by 2030. Germany, where its e-mobility business operates is a central pillar of its EV offering, with around 1,500 ultrafast charging points across the country.

To date, bp ventures has invested more than $1bn in seven regions, including 14 mobility investments. Since 2022, Service4Charger and bp have been working together to electrify Aral pulse fleet customers in Germany and plan to further expand their collaboration.