Charged EVs | HeyCharge wins €2.5-million grant to develop its offline EV charging solution
HeyCharge, a Munich-based EV charging technology company backed by BMW i Ventures, Statkraft Ventures and Y Combinator, has been awarded a €2.5-million grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator.
The grant will fund HeyCharge’s SecureCharge FLEX project, which seeks to eliminate two barriers to deploying conventional EV chargers in multi-unit residential buildings: unreliable connectivity and prohibitive installation costs.
“Nearly half of Europe’s population lives in apartment buildings, and most of them park underground—exactly where internet-dependent chargers fail,” said Chris Cardé, founder and CEO of HeyCharge. “Our technology works 100% reliably even in underground garages, and because we’ve eliminated the need for communications infrastructure—the cabling, the specialist labor, the ongoing maintenance—we cut installation costs by more than 40%.”
HeyCharge’s SecureCharge platform operates 100% offline, using patented one-time cryptographic tokens generated on the user’s smartphone for secure authentication.
HeyCharge says it has deployed its technology across more than 130 sites and 2,500 parking spaces in Germany, and over 123,000 additional spaces are addressable through strategic partnerships with major real estate operators. The company is launching a partnership model that will enable charging operators and installers across Europe to deliver its technology. HeyCharge has raised €6.3 million in total private funding to date.
The €2.5-million EIC Accelerator grant will support a 24-month project to advance SecureCharge FLEX from its current technology readiness level (TRL 7) to TRL 8, including:
- Development and validation of advanced energy management features, including dynamic load management, demand response, dynamic tariffs and bidirectional (V2G) charging capabilities.
- Integration and interoperability testing with partner platforms and third-party hardware systems.
- Large-scale pilot deployments in multiple European countries to validate performance in diverse building types and grid conditions.
- Multi-country certification and regulatory compliance preparation for EU-wide commercial rollout.
- Onboarding installers and operators across Europe through a franchise model.
“The EIC Accelerator is not just funding—it’s a signal from Europe’s most rigorous innovation programme that our approach to democratising EV charging is ready to scale,” said Dr. Robert Lasowski, co-founder and CBDO of HeyCharge. “We’ve proven that eliminating communications infrastructure makes charging both more reliable and more affordable. Now we’re taking that from proven deployments to mass-market adoption across the continent.”
Source: HeyCharge
