Ember receives funding to expand electric bus fleet
The public transport startup launched in 2020 with two electric coaches operating on its initial route between Dundee and Edinburgh. Since then, Ember’s network has grown to include destinations such as Glasgow, Stirling and Kinross. The acquisition of 14 additional electric buses will supplement its total fleet to 38 vehicles, which Ember states will help provide more passenger trips every week and scale its route network further.
This is not the first funding that Ember has received from the bank, which funded the first two electric coaches with a £490,000 loan under the government’s Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), and has since provided £4.7 million through the CBILS and the government-backed Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS). Alongside the funding from Triodos, Ember also received funding for coaches from Transport for Scotland using the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZeb).
“Supporting the transition to a low carbon economy is an important objective for us as a bank and to work with a pioneering company in the electrification of transport is an ideal fit for us,” said Norrie Cruickshank, senior relationship manager at Triodos Bank UK. Keith Bradbury, co-founder at Ember, added: “Triodos have been with us from the very start of Ember and have adapted their approach as we’ve scaled the business, taking a deeper look into our long-term plans, and understanding what financial backing they could provide to support each phase.”
Ember was initially founded in Scotland in 2019, starting with a single vehicle. “In 2019, we didn’t have a [web] domain … we didn’t have anything, actually,” Bradbury said in an interview. “We were approaching these companies and telling them that we’d like to buy ‘one’ electric coach, because that’s all we had money for. Obviously, when you say you want to buy one electric coach, no one takes you seriously. Some companies laughed in our faces.”
The bus company in question that did believe in the young startup was Yutong from China, with its UK distribution partner Pelican, who were also now contracted for the fresh additions to the fleet, specifically 14 models of the Yutong GTe14. The first route was then launched in 2020. Since then, Ember has made “significant improvements” to its buses, including increasing passenger spaces from 38 to 53 and tripling its luggage capacity, alongside amenities such as Wifi and real-time route information on board.
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