Spain: Iberdrola leads €15M financing round for Wallbox
The Spanish manufacturer Wallbox Chargers has completed a 15 million euro financing round led by energy supplier Iberdrola. The company from Barcelona aims to strengthen its position in Europe and expand worldwide.
The latest financing round was led by Iberdrola and fits into the utility’s plans to set up 25,000 charging stations in Spain by 2021 as part of the Iberdrola Sustainable Mobility Plan.
While led by Iberdrola, other co-investors and some of Wallbox’ current partners fund the latest expansion plan of the charging equipment manufacturer as well. Said expansion includes markets as far as China, where the Spanish company recently set up a joint venture with Changchun FAWSN of China. Together they aim to sell up to half a million Wallbox charging stations a year made at a new factory in the city of Suzhou, close to Shanghai as reported.
Also at home in Spain, Wallbox has already been in business with Iberdrola and the new operation is expected to strengthen the business partnership between both companies, according to the press release.
Iberdrola has made this investment through its Perseo start-up programme, which supports emerging companies developing critical technologies to future energy developments. Worth 70 million euros, through Perseo, Iberdrola has brought more than 2,000 emerging companies into its ecosystem and invested in 15 start-ups in areas such as energy storage, drones, robotics and artificial intelligence.
For the utility’s Sustainable Mobility Plan, the planned 25,000 electric vehicle charging stations include installation at companies such as Ikea and Avia to install fast-charging points at the latter’s gas stations. The other part of the plan looks to install chargers in urban and suburban areas including homes but mostly with public access by 2021. Especially in light of open access, Iberdrola intends introducing fast, super-fast and ultra-fast charging stations at least every 100 km on Spain’s main motorways during 2019.
iberdrola.com (press release)
0 Comments