Pionix receives over 8 million euros for the expansion of open charging infrastructure

The German EV tech scale-up Pionix has closed a financing round of more than 8 million euros. The company aims to further scale its open source-based enterprise solutions and make the global charging infrastructure market more interoperable and reliable. The round was led by Ascend Capital Partners, with participation from Startup BW Seed Fonds (MBG Baden-Württemberg), Pale blue dot, Vireo Ventures, Axeleo Ventures and other investors.

Fragmented market slows down electromobility

Despite the strong growth of electromobility, the global charging ecosystem remains technically fragmented. Manufacturers and operators often use proprietary software, which leads to interoperability problems. Charging error rates of up to 25% show how unreliably many charging systems continue to function. The result: high repair costs, frustrated users and a delayed market ramp-up.

When it comes to charging electric cars, reliability is key to the success of electromobility. The fragmented landscape of incompatible systems and high error rates has long slowed down the transition to e-mobility.

Marco Möller, founder and CEO of Pionix

Pionix, founded in 2021, takes the opposite approach. The company develops open, modular software and hardware solutions that create a common technical basis and make chargers compatible regardless of the manufacturer.

EVerest as an open basis for the industry

In response to the heterogeneity of the industry, Pionix initiated the open source platform EVerest, which is now one of the most important open source initiatives in the cleantech sector. The project is hosted under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation Energy (LF Energy) and is estimated to be worth more than 500 million US dollars.

Over 600 participants from more than 70 organizations are now contributing to its further development. Hundreds of thousands of charging points worldwide are running on the basis of the EVerest stack. The platform forms a uniform basis for charger manufacturers, automotive companies, operators and fleets and is intended to improve the reliability and maintainability of the infrastructure in the long term.

Enterprise products for a global market

On this basis, Pionix builds commercial products that simplify the integration and operation of chargers. The Pionix Cloud offers a specialized backend system for manufacturers that is fully based on EVerest. ChargeBridge, a preconfigured hardware module, also standardizes and accelerates the technical integration of different systems.

With the new funding, the scale-up aims to drive the global rollout of these products and further strengthen collaboration in the EVerest ecosystem.

Support from the VC and cleantech ecosystem

Several investors emphasize the strategic importance of the open approach. Ascend Capital CEO Jerry Hong sees Pionix as an important technology supplier for the future of charging infrastructure. Pale-blue-dot partner Joel Larsson compares EVerest to Android - as an open platform that brings together a fragmented ecosystem and accelerates innovation.

Just as Android has unified the ecosystem for smartphones, Pionix is creating the open platform to unify and scale the global charging infrastructure for EVs

Joel Larsson, General Partner at Pale blue dot

Support also comes from Baden-Württemberg. MBG points out the regional importance of the location for the automotive and mobility industry. Vireo Ventures emphasizes that Pionix was recently included in the Norrsken Impact/100, a list that identifies high-growth tech companies with social added value.

With the new funding, Pionix aims to make a decisive contribution to making electric mobility more reliable and sustainable globally.