Tech billionaires Mike Cannon-Bookes and Cameron Adams have sunk $10 million into second-hand EV marketplace Good Car Company, ahead of a “mega” capital raise later this year.
The Atlassian founder tipped in $10 million via his green energy fund Boundless, while Canva cofounder Adams and his wife Lisa Miller added an undisclosed amount.
The company will use the extra cash to grow second-hand electric vehicle sales from the current 200 a year to 2,000.
They will introduce the commercial electric Peugeot e-Expert van and are bringing in some smaller EVs, although they can’t say which.
“The money is going into getting a lot more cars, developing systems and creating the mktplace for more EVs. Bringing a wider range of cars, commercial vans, small EVs, plugging the gaps,” spokesperson Anthony Broese van Groenou told The Driven.
“It’s a really good signal for investors and more broadly it allows us to scale much faster. So this initial bit of money unlocks more capital.”
No cash crunch for EVs
Venture capital investments into tech companies have collapsed this year as funders, fearful of a long downturn, have written down unlisted investment values across the board, leading to mass redundancies among Australia’s once-bright startups.
But Broese van Groenou says in the “doing good” space there’s still plenty of money available.
“There is an appetite for companies that help corporations achieve their ESG targets. Given we have a very social and environmental mandate, we’re able to give tangible tools that fit with funding mandates,” he said.
“We are having wide ranging discussions with many sources of impact funding [across venture, corporate and social entities].”
More cars, faster
Good Car Company started out in 2019 with a bulk buying service, aggregating a small range of used EVs in order to on-sell them to communities at the lowest possible price, works with communities throughout Australia to help deliver affordable electric vehicles.
The company is currently working on a subscription service for EVs and offering financing via partners like Plenti to make EVs more achievable for lower income families.
Sales of EVs in Australia have doubled from 2 per cent to 4.4 per cent this year.
But international data indicates that number needs to hit 10 per cent by 2024 to accelerate EV adoption.
Good Car Company is looking to the government’s proposed fuel efficiency standards as a good start, saying that similar changes in New Zealand caused EV purchases to shoot up from 3 per cent to 10 per cent in just a year.
Rachel Williamson is a science and business journalist, who focuses on climate change-related health and environmental issues.