An electric vehicle startup company has won £50,000 after participating in Dragons' Den and receiving funding from celebrity investor Deborah Meaden.
The electric vehicle company Kerbo Charge said it will use the money to help roll out its through-pavement EV charging channel across the UK.
The team went face to face with Dragons Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Sara Davies and Steven Bartlett hoping to receive support both financially and through business advice to help expand the business.
The EV company founders Michael Goulden and Ben Whitaker pitched to the Dragons earlier this month and heard a range of offers from the Dragons.
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Deborah Meaden invested £50,000 to help the business
PA
The founders expressed their frustration with the lack of suitable charging options for EV owners without a driveway.
Currently, these households need to trail a cable over the pavement to charge a car, which can create a hazard for anyone using the walkway, especially those with disabilities.
The alternative is to travel to a public charging point, which is most expensive and time-consuming for drivers.
Offering a solution, Kerbo Charge created a through-pavement charging channel to help motorists without driveways find easy access to charging stations near their homes.
To use the EV, residents insert their charging cable into the channel and the self-closing lid prevents the wire from spilling out and causing a hazard for nearby people.
Deborah Meaden recognised the problem charging ports could pose for drivers and offered to invest £50,000 to help the business make the product available across the UK.
The investment was in exchange for six per cent of the business, to which the pair agreed.
The company is currently trialling out the chargers in eight local authorities with many more hoping to be in the pipeline.
Meaden said on the show that local authorities have an impending problem that is going to cost a fortune and could get worse when more drivers switch to electric.
She remarked: “This is a very cost-effective way of dealing with this driving issue and there is a lot of cash around for solving these problems.
“You have a legislative drive, you have a lot of cash available. You’ve got a perfect storm”.
As of the end of January 2024, there are around 1,000,000 fully electric cars on UK roads, with Kerbo Charge hoping to tap into this market.
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Kerbo created a through-pavement charging channel
BBC
Whitaker added: “The Dragons understand just how challenging it can be to introduce a new product and change people’s minds about what is possible.
“We hope that with their help we can persuade local authorities to approve more installations, and terraced home-owners that there are now solutions to let them charge their EVs cheaply at home so that they make the switch to clean vehicles more quickly.”