LONDON: Good Energy Group has made a further £1m strategic investment via a convertible loan note into Zap-Map’s parent company Next Green Car Ltd (NGCL).

Zap-Map is the UK’s leading Electric Vehicle mapping service and the investment will fund the next stage of growth and scale commercial opportunities.

Following the release of the EV payment service Zap-Pay, Zap-Map continued to have significant growth in registered users. Following the appointment of senior commercial & strategic leadership roles in February 2021, Zap-Map is continuing to execute against its growth strategy. The Zap-Map Board has identified the requirement for further funding to accelerate the next phase of growth and capitalise on a growing number of commercial propositions.

Commercial partnership with Fleetcor UK

As part of making charging simple for all EV drivers, Zap-Map have entered into a heads of terms agreement with Fleetcor UK, part of Fleetcor a worldwide leader in business payments, to integrate its Zap-Pay solution with the Allstar payment platform. This will cover commercial fleets of vehicles, aimed at delivering a solution to remove the payment complexities for businesses and commercial fleets.

As part of an on the road solution, the Allstar One Electric fuel card enables fleet operators to manage all fuel types, whether traditional (petrol or diesel) or an alternative such as electric, hydrogen or hybrid, on one payment card.

Allstar has already partnered with nine leading EV charging providers, including Chargepoint services, ESB Energy, Engenie, and Source London, to create the one of the largest multi-branded EV fuel networks in the UK. It now provides fleet operators and drivers with access to more than 4,277 charging points across 1,700 locations throughout the UK. Allstar is continually working to grow its electric charging network, easing access to charging points and lowering range anxiety.

Background and details of further strategic investment

In 2019, Good Energy made a strategic investment in NGCL, as part of the development of its own mobility propositions that was predicated on the significant future growth prospects within the electrification of transport. As a result, Good Energy has a 50.1% majority stake in NGCL, and thus Zap-Map.

Today’s investment of £1m in NGCL is by way of convertible loan notes. The details of the investment are below:

·    The loan note comprises three broadly equal and separate tranches of investment throughout 2021;

·    Good Energy can exercise the conversion of the loan at the earlier of subsequent funding rounds, or a longstop date of 12 months from the date of agreement, at a material discount.

Zap-Map well positioned for commercial scale up

Zap-Map is playing a key role for all EV drivers in this transition, by enabling them to search, plan and pay for EV charging in one app, whilst receiving real time updates in car.

Zap-Map currently has over 95% of the UK’s public charging points on its network, with live dynamic data for over 70% of the UK EV charging network and is the number one app used by EV drivers to locate chargers. Over 75% of the UK EV drivers have downloaded Zap-Map, which have grown over 60% in 2020 in line with the UK EV market. With over 180k registered users, 140k cross platform users, 130k saved route plans and over 12k user comments per month, Zap-Map has continued to position itself as the voice of the EV driver and an indispensable tool for new and existing drivers.

Following the successful launch of the Zap-Pay solution in September 2020 and continued growth of its user base, Zap-Map is well placed to benefit from significant uplift in the EV market in the UK and beyond.

EV charging made simple

Zap-Map remains the voice of the EV driver and developed through deep relationships with customers & ‘go to’ brand for all things EV. A capital light, technology platform business, which focuses on three core areas in the EV industry:

·    Mapping. Functionality core to the platform and EV driver experience. Making EV charging simple for all, with visibility of over 95% of the UKs public charge points and live dynamic data for over 70% of the UK EV charging network.

·    Payment. Leading interoperable payment solution, providing payment capabilities for all EV drivers and helping to accelerate EV adoption by removing payment barriers.

·    Data & insights. Over 10 years of unique data sets to help understand EV adoption and driver behaviours. Providing insights across the EV ecosystem on utilisation, adoption and behaviour to help future proof solutions.

Zap-Map is playing a key role for all EV drivers in this transition by enabling them to search, plan and pay for EV charging in one app whilst receiving real time updates in car.

 Juliet Davenport, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Good Energy and Chair of Zap-Map, said: “This investment in Zap-Map will allow them to accelerate their proven products and provide much needed services for the growing number of EV drivers in the UK and beyond. With a strong pipeline of opportunities we are excited about what the future holds for Zap.

The partnership with Fleetcor is a great example of two leaders in their fields collaborating to solving and simplifying a complex problem for businesses as they transition to electric motoring. The solution will help to make charging simple for business EV drivers at scale, increase adoption and help drive the UK towards zero emission motoring”.

Good Energy is a generator and supplier of 100% renewable power and an innovator in energy services. It currently owns two wind farms, six solar farms and sources electricity from a community of 1,600 independent UK generators.

Since it was founded 20 years ago, the company has been at the forefront of the charge towards a cleaner, distributed energy system. Its mission is to support UK households and businesses generate, store and share clean power.

Good Energy is recognised as a leader in this market, through our green kite accreditation with the London Stock Exchange and as a top rated Green energy supplier by Which?. www.goodenergy.co.uk   

Launched in June 2014, with a mission to accelerate the shift to electric vehicles (EV) and help the drive towards zero carbon mobility, Zap-Map is the UK’s leading EV mapping service. The charging point map, available on desktop and iOS/Android apps, helps EV drivers to search for available charge points, plan longer journeys, share updates and pay for charging on participating networks.

In the UK, Zap-Map attracts more than 120,000 cross-platform users per month from a rapidly growing fleet of around 200,000 pure-EVs (Zap-Map’s core user group) and 230,000 plug-in hybrids (SMMT: December 2020). www.zap-map.com/live/