Paua introduces roaming service exclusive to fleets
Paua, a newcomer to the e-mobility space founded in 2020, says it has reached a milestone with its roaming network now allowing access to 10,000 charge points across the UK. Their partners include leading providers such as Osprey, Fastned, Ionity, Connected Kerb, Char.gy, and Mer.
Paua suggests there will be more to come. Note, however, that integration seems incomplete to date. The website counts over 5,000 charge points live and only states another 5,000 were coming soon without saying when. The company also explicitly counts connectors, not charging stations, that can easily have two.
Maths aside, the recent signing spree follows an “oversubscribed” pre-seed round in January 2022, according to Paua. The round was led by Seedcamp and also saw participation from Speedinvest, Octopus Ventures, and angel investors, including former directors from RWE, Ovo, and SSE.
While Paua offers essentially the same service as other roaming providers, i.e. access to charge points via a single app and EV charge card on a single platform, the startup focuses specifically on UK fleets since an in-house survey found that 40% of fleets avoid public charging. These fleet thus form a pool of “historically under-served business customers,” explains Niall Riddell, CEO and co-founder of Paua. “The reason for our success comes down to the fact that we provide a great value-add for our customers, as we make EV fleet admin simple,” he adds.
Charging tariffs
The standard subscription starts at £3 per driver with access to the dashboard and up to five “fuel” cards. The ‘Occasional’ tariff is free but incurs a 20% service charge on transactions. At present, the offers also include three months free of charge, and there are options to customise for larger businesses with more than twenty drivers. At the end of the month, payments will be summed up in one invoice, doing away with charging receipts piling up, so Paua.
The offer does not include standard charging tariffs, however, since prices remain at the discretion of the CPOs. For example, DC charging at Shell will cost drivers £0.60/kWh or £0.69/kWh at an Ionity column and £0.49/kWh with Osprey.
The Paua solution is only available to registered UK businesses at the moment.
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