Volteras, a London-based electric vehicle software startup, has raised $11.1 million in a Series A funding round as it looks to accelerate its vision of transforming EVs into distributed energy resources for the U.S. power grid. The funding was led by Union Square Ventures and included participation from Edenred, Exor, Long Journey Ventures, and Wex, the company told TechCrunch.
“In the future, the electric vehicle will be the center of the entire energy grid,” said Peter Wilson, co-founder and CEO of Volteras. He believes EVs have the potential to act as mobile grid assets, helping to stabilize electricity supply as the U.S. electrical infrastructure faces rising demand and aging components.
According to Volteras, the U.S. added 37.1 gigawatt-hours of grid-scale energy storage in 2023. If every EV on American roads were equipped with bidirectional charging, that storage capacity could be multiplied by nearly tenfold, representing a transformative opportunity for grid resilience. However, challenges remain, including limited support for vehicle-to-grid (V2G) connections in many current EV models and the high cost of bidirectional charging hardware.
Volteras aims to address the gap with its software, which creates a virtual power plant by aggregating plugged-in EVs and offering their stored energy to utilities on demand. The company integrates directly with automakers’ APIs to access car battery status, remote unlock capabilities, telematics, and other features. It then sells these services to clients such as utilities, fleet managers, insurers, and rental companies, charging a monthly fee per connected vehicle and sharing revenue with participating automakers.
While other players including Texture, EV.energy, and Greenely are developing similar solutions, Wilson says Volteras holds a key advantage. “We’re going to cover like 90% of the automotive market worldwide by the end of the year,” he said, citing active partnerships with over 30 automakers, including Tesla, Ford Motor, BMW, Stellantis, and Volvo.
The promise of connected services has long enticed automakers eager for new revenue streams. General Motors, for instance, once projected $25 billion in subscription service revenue by 2030 but has not updated progress on that front recently. Volteras believes that unlocking car data—particularly around battery usage—will be essential in enabling applications like usage-based insurance, smart routing, and dynamic pricing.
“This kind of hidden data layer that you don’t see — that’ll be the crux of how companies offer services to you, give you discounts, and make it more affordable to own an electric vehicle,” Wilson said.