E-Car Club has sewn up a £215,000 funding round involving a group of angel backers, a month after raising £100,000 on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube.
The business, set up by Andrew Wordsworth and Christopher Morris in 2011, is currently completing a ten-month pilot project which has been partially funded by the Technology Strategy Board.
Sites in London and the South East will now be opened using its newly-acquired investment capital. Its first scheme, in Milton Keynes, has 90 members using Nissan LEAF cars.
Wordsworth, managing director at Sustainable Ventures and chairman of E-Car Club, comments, ‘Receiving £100,000 from 63 investors in E-Car Club’s crowdfunding round proved a real stamp of approval when looking at additional investment.
‘The second round is a more traditional investment structure. The strength of support for the company’s business plan has been shown in our ability to rapidly attract follow-on investment from management team members, existing shareholders and a new angel investor.’
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E-Car Club uses plug-in electric vehicles and says that it has already received support from Local Authorities in the UK and car manufacturers.
Sustainable Ventures, which has set up the business, has now established three new businesses. Alongside E-Car Club, it has also founded Powervault, which has developed a low-cost domestic scale electricity storage device, and The Sustainable Home Survey Company, which allows recent graduates and community members to become home assessors.
Mac Blumenthal, entrepreneur and new angel backer of E-Car Club, adds, ‘E-Car’s innovative concept and its enormous growth potential, as well as its dynamic and professional team is what inspired me to invest in the company at an early stage.’
Luke Lang, founder and director of Crowdcube, says, ‘It is great to see businesses like E-Car Club securing its next round of funding from more traditional routes after raising its seed investment on Crowdcube.’
