Terry said they have also hired their core team of seven employees and trained their first tranche of technicians.Feb 1 (Reuters) - Enterprise software startup Chargebee has raised $250 million at a valuation of $3.5 billion, in a funding round lead by Tiger Global and Sequoia Global, the company's founders said. Since then, Terry and Ellis were accepted into Elemental Excelerator’s startup incubator, raised about $400,000 in grant money, launched a pilot program with Tellus Power focused on preventative maintenance and landed contracts with EV charging networks and manufacturers such as EV Connect, ABB and SparkCharge. Ellis is now the chief workforce officer at ChargerHelp. It was here that she met Ellis, a career coach at LACI who also worked at the Long Beach Job Corp Center. The newly minted founder joined the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, where she developed a curriculum to teach people how to repair EV chargers. In January 2020, Terry quit her job and started ChargerHelp. “I thought, if I can figure this stuff out, then anyone can.” “If there was a part that needed to be swapped out, I would just go do it myself,” Terry said, adding she didn’t have a background in software or repairs. Terry often took matters in her own hands if issues arose with stations located in Los Angeles, where she is based. Terry said it could take as long as 30 days to get an electrical contractor on site to repair these non-electrical problems. After an onsite visit, a technician then typically shares data with the customer, and then steps are taken to order the correct and specific part - a practice that often doesn’t happen today.Ĭan solid state batteries power up for the next generation of EVs?Īnd yet, the general practice was to use electrical contractors to fix issues at the charging stations. “Today when a station goes down there’s really no troubleshooting guidance,” said Terry, noting that it takes getting someone out into the field to run diagnostics on the station to understand the specific problem. The funds will be used to build out its platform, hire beyond its 27-person workforce and expand its service area. ChargerHelp works directly with the charging manufacturers and network providers. This round values the startup, which was founded in January 2020, at $11 million post-money. The company said it has raised $2.75 million from investors Trucks VC, Kapor Capital, JFF, Energy Impact Partners and The Fund. “There was an abandoned vehicle parked there and the station was surrounded by mud,” said Terry who is CEO and co-founded the company with Evette Ellis.ĭemand for ChargerHelp’s service has attracted customers and investors. One customer assumed that poor usage rates at a particular station was due to a lack of EVs in the area, Terry recalled in a recent interview. Terry, who co-founded ChargerHelp!, an on-demand repair app for electric vehicle charging stations, has seen these issues firsthand. If a station doesn’t send out an error or a driver doesn’t report it, network providers might never know there’s even a problem. In addition to being installed, they also need to work - and today, that isn’t happening. The coming wave of electric vehicles will require more than thousands of charging stations.
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