Commercial vehicle charging gets major boost with €15 million investment in Dutch firm Leap24

Sustainability investor Meewind has invested €15 million towards the expansion of Leap24 – a start-up focused on the provision of fast-charging stations for commercial vehicles, according to a press release.

Meewind’s funding will contribute to the expansion of Leap24’s network of fast charging stations in the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom. An agreement has also been reached on the long-term support for growth.

In anticipation of a new market

By 2025, 30 Dutch cities will have introduced zero-emission urban distribution zones aimed at taking the carbon footprint out of commercial vehicles. As a result, business users need locations to quickly charge their vehicles, underlining why Meewind is investing in Leap24. 

Niels van Heesewijk, investment manager at Meewind, said: “More and more cities want to introduce a zero-emission urban distribution zone, but that brings with it the necessary challenges. In order to realize these ambitions, both cities and companies depend to a large extent on the availability of charging infrastructure. 

“Leap24 has now proven that they are able to build fast charging stations for business traffic in a relatively short period of time. By investing now, the participants of the Energy Transition Funddirectly contributes to the expansion of the network to forty locations in the Netherlands and the first locations to open in the United Kingdom and Germany.”

Start-up builds software to prevent charging stations from overloading 

Hungary’s Smart Capacit System, a firm developing software to prevent charging stations from overloading features as a start-up of the day.

The chicken-and-egg situation

At the start of February, LEAP24 also secured an investment of €4.25 million. Pelle Schlichting, founder of Leap24, says the company is so popular for the very simple reason that they are breaking the ‘chicken-and-egg problem’.

He elaborates by saying: “The zero-emission urban distribution zones are a fact, but especially in the large cities it is not feasible for many entrepreneurs to charge the delivery vans and/or trucks on their own site. 

The design of the LEAP24 charging stations – spacious charging stations, suitable pavement and the fact that we can quickly install an above-average number of charging stations – ensures that we are one of the few players in the Netherlands to be able to break through this chicken-and-egg problem. This new investment round enables us to scale up internationally even faster and thus make an important contribution to accelerating the energy transition.”

From gas station to charging station, for car and passengers

The growing market for fast charging is not only being picked up by gas stations. There’s a bunch of other places that benefit from the rise in e-driving.