Riverstone backs Freewire – Riverstone Energy has agreed to invest $10m in FreeWire Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of battery-integrated DC fast chargers (DCFCs) and their associated software. Another Riverstone fund also participated in the transaction, also investing $10 million for a total investment of $20 million from Riverstone affiliated investment vehicles.
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area and led by co-founder and CEO Arcady Sosinov, FreeWire designs, manufactures, and markets unitised battery-integrated DCFCs to customers such as retailers, utilities, electric vehicle fleet operators, and charging station network operators across the globe. In addition to hardware sales, FreeWire’s software platform offers recurring revenues, enabling charger management and third-party platform integration with plans to offer energy management and grid services.
As Riverstone Energy tries to transition its portfolio, this investment, which supports the electrification and decarbonisation of transportation, supports that. They say that DCFC plays a significant role for electric vehicles when charging time and high utilisation are critical, such as retail, ride hailing/taxi and emergency service fleets or on highway corridors. Yet, conventional DCFC economics are challenged by demand charges, electrical infrastructure upgrades and extended site development timelines. Coupling energy storage with DCFCs eliminates these barriers, accelerating the deployment of critical DCFCs. Further, as battery prices and performance continue to improve, the use cases for the integrated battery charger will continue to grow and increase the addressable market.
Riverstone Energy says that it views FreeWire as a unique opportunity to capitalise on momentum within both the electric vehicle and energy storage “megatrends”.
RSE : Riverstone backs Freewire