EV rental platform claims success with “third biggest” crowdfund this year

Australian EV rental platform Evee has completed its equity crowdfunding round, achieving its maximum funding request of $1.6 million.

The funding round closed at 10pm Thursday night with a total of 618 investors investing an average of $2,589.

The crowdfunding platform Birchal that was used for the fundraising round says that it was the its third biggest equity crowdfunding round of the year so far. Evee now has a valuation of $10.6 million.

Former head of Atlassian, Sascha-Manuel Reuter was one of the investors.

“As an early user of the platform, I’m super stoked to finally got the opportunity to invest in Evee. The progress the team made in growing and improving the platform over the last couple of years, despite the pandemic and market downturn, has been nothing short but impressive,” said Sascha-Manuel.

“I’m especially excited about the upcoming UK and New Zealand rollout and going truly global from there. The investment in Evee just perfectly aligns with my values and other investments in the climate action & general social responsibility spaces.” he said.

The AirBNB style platform that connects owners with people wanting to rent EVs has amassed more than 8,000 customers since it first launched and has electric vehicles located in every major city and town in Australia.

The company has also seen 100% growth every year for the past three years. The platform has become so successful in Australia it is now rolling out globally, with Evee New Zealand just launching, and Evee UK and Europe on the horizon.

The money raised will be used to expand the business and bring exciting new platform features and services to life.

“We are blown away by the support thrown behind our company – Australia’s only car sharing platform devoted exclusively to electric cars,” said Slava Kozlovskii, Founder of Evee.

“I’ve been looking at the names of our top investors and they are a mix of people we know who own an electric car, or customers who regularly use our platform to hire EVs.

“We also have a lot of people who have held notable positions in companies such as Canva and Atlassian – so it is really exciting to have people with connections to the high-profile tech industry throwing their full support behind us.

The platform lets drivers book make a booking by vehicle type, location, date, and budget with delivery options often available to the airport or hotel.

Commission is charged completed bookings. The platform is free for hosts to access and it’s easy to list their cars, and it takes only moments for renters to hire them.

Kozlovskii says customers can earn up to $2,000 per month by renting out their electric vehicle to travellers and people “who are dipping their toe in the EV market for the first time.”

Lee Torrens, former Marketplace Director and now Advisor to Canva, was one of the fundraising round’s top investors.

“I didn’t invest in the early days of the internet nor did I invest in the early days of smartphones. So I don’t want to miss the opportunity of investing in the early days of electric cars,” he said.

“I like Evee because it’s building a solid foundation to dominate the crowd rental portion of the EV market transformation.” said Torrens.