Aviva Investors has completed a €30m investment into Erapid Charger Company, an Irish electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure specialist based in Dublin.

Erapid trades in Ireland as CarCharger EV, and as EasyGo, Ireland’s largest private car charging network provider.

The £223bn (€260bn) global asset management arm of insurer Aviva, will make a phased investment into Erapid through its climate transition real assets strategy. The funds will be used by Erapid to develop more sites across its growing EV charger network as it continues to scale its business.

It is the second significant investment Aviva Investors has made into the UK and Ireland’s EV charging infrastructure, following its investment in Connected kerb in 2022 to support the delivery of 190,000 on-street EV chargers across the UK by 2030.

Erapid was launched in 2016 and has an EV charging network consisting of more than 4,000 charging points in 1,500 locations across Ireland and Northern Ireland, accessible via the EasyGo app, which is currently used by more than 50,000 registered drivers and with approximately 2,000 new users each month so far in 2023, the company said.

Adam Irwin, fund manager, infrastructure equity, at Aviva Investors, said: “Our investment into Erapid is a terrific opportunity to invest into one of our home markets and support the growing Irish and Northern Irish EV charging sector. Ireland has some of the lowest public charger-to-EV ratios in the EU, giving potential for substantial growth in the platform as part of the transition from internal combustion engines and towards electric powertrains.

”We view this as a great opportunity for the money we look after on behalf of our clients to make a material contribution to delivering on the UK and Ireland’s net zero ambitions, whilst also meeting their long-term investment objectives.”

Chris Kelly, co-founder of Erapid, said Aviva’s investment ”will accelerate our mission to decarbonise transport, providing accessible and efficient EV charging solutions across the island of Ireland and into the UK”.

He added: ”As Ireland’s largest owner and operator of charging stations, this strategic investment by Aviva Investors propels us into an exciting phase of growth. One of the immediate goals resulting from this funding is the significant expansion of our network, including the rollout of over 3,000 fast chargers. We will also be hiring for up to 60 new roles across operations, customer support and sales.”

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