A new AI platform that can power renewable, electric fleets is to streamline operations for thousands of commercial EVs after securing multi-million seed funding.
Guided Energy, which has developed software to automate EV fleet operations, has raised $5.2m (£4.1m) from Sequoia Capital and Dynamo Ventures in its work to “redefine” electric vehicle operations.
This capital will be used to onboard thousands of commercial EVs across delivery, transportation and car rental fleets, which already includes some of the largest mobility providers such as Sixt and Addison Lee.
Guided Energy’s all-in-one EV fleet and energy management system connects with the entire EV ecosystem to show what’s happening and what needs to happen.
Integrations with EVs, onsite chargers, external charging-networks as well as legacy fleet management systems give operators critical visibility and automate time-consuming operational tasks, from planning charge sessions and managing dispatch to reporting and expense management.
Powered by AI, the Guided platform helps fleets of all sizes save up to $10,000 (some £8,000) per EV annually through higher vehicle productivity, lower operating costs and avoided CapEx, according to the firm.
Anant Kapoor, co-founder and CEO of Guided Energy, said: “Fleets have been digitising their processes for the last two decades, but electrification has added new systems and new data that is incompatible with their existing operations. By breaking these silos, fleets have a unified view across their entire EV operations, allowing them to use upcoming routes or jobs to schedule charging and real-time EV data to plan their dispatch and more.”
Global mobility firm Sixt said the solution will transform its operations.
Marc Aubrée, managing director of Sixt France, said: “The need to electrify our fleet means that branches have to adapt the way they work to EVs, particularly when it comes to recharging. Guided Energy will optimise our use of charging infrastructure both on-site and on the road, enabling us to maximise utilisation over the course of a day, while embedding external charging solutions directly into our operations.”
And London minicab giant Addison Lee also expects to see major benefits from the solution.
Richard Davies, director of data and commercial finance, commented: “Addison Lee has already electrified over a thousand vehicles in our transition towards renewable transport. Guided Energy is a critical enabler by leveraging data across EVs and chargers to optimise our ride allocations and charging so that we can deliver a better electric experience to both our drivers and customers.”
Guided Energy was founded by Anant Kapoor and Eric Daoud in 2023 to enable fleets to run both sustainably and profitably. Anant, CEO, is an engineer from the University of Cambridge & MIT and has led product teams to develop software used by thousands of fleets to track and cut their emissions.
Eric, CTO, has a PhD in Machine Learning from INRIA. His research leveraged Machine Learning techniques to work on resource allocation and optimal transport problems.
Bryan Schreier, partner at Sequoia, said: “Guided Energy is building the operating system for the future of sustainable fleets. Leveraging machine learning, the platform gives customers an easier and cheaper way to charge, operate and manage their electric vehicles. Anant and Eric’s complementary backgrounds combining logistics product management and ML capabilities make them the ideal team to tackle this problem. We’re excited to partner with them on this next phase of growth.”
