EV tech start-up Invisible Urban seeks more funding

Auckland tech start-up Invisible Urban, which maintains and monitors EV chargers, is going gangbusters in the US but is struggling to find financial support at home.

It’s landed more than $85 million worth of US deals – a master contract there growing from exclusive access to 51,000 car parks for 10 years to 122,290, co-founder Nigel Broomhall says.

“We are the sole company that can provide EV charging at these sites,” he says.

“Our initial hardware order has grown in value from US$23.7m to US$56.2m.”

Broomhall says the COVID-19 pandemic stopped them getting back to New York to continue funding discussions, so Invisible Urban applied to the NZ Green Fund for help.

“We got knocked back because our revenue is derived from the US where our initial projects are,” Broomhall explains.

“Based on feedback we modified our business plan to grow the team more aggressively in New Zealand (more than 270 staff over the next five years) and also implement more projects here.“

He says he’s had no feedback and no response to contacts.

“I reached out to the Green Party given our green credentials and mission, and the opportunity to grow green tech here in NZ. No response.

“I made an approach to a recommended contact by the prime minister’s office during COVID. No response.

“I had previously made an application to the provincial growth fund along similar lines. I suggested we grow a tech base in Waikato and Northland (target areas for the fund). Declined.

“The next day they announced they wanted to ‘get nephs off the couch’ digging holes. I offered to train them in a clean-tech industry.”

The ‘nephs’ refers to what’s termed NEETs – young people ‘not in employment, education, or training’.

“We’ve had a couple of cracks at government funding but it’s clear we don’t fit the bill, and given the lack of traction on the EV front that transport electrification is not a priority,” Broomhall says.

“Personally, I’m really disappointed that a government with a strong Greens influence has really achieved nothing in this area. No emissions standard. No feebate. No change to the previous administration’s initiatives. They haven’t even led where it counts – the government fleet. In fact, emissions from the fleet have actually gone up.”

Broomhall says Invisible Urban is now focusing on having conversations with “some high net worth Kiwis, and US investors”.

He has considerable experience in the EV industry, forming ChargeSmart last year and having a hand in many EV related activities including, perhaps ironically, producing a guide designed to increase a potential applicant’s chances of getting funding for EV related projects from the government’s low emission vehicles contestable fund.