Drake Star Partners Advises The Mobility House On Its Fundraising With A Private Placement From The Sp Group And A Financing Facility By The European Investment Bank.

AMSTERDAM | MUNICH | SINGAPORE | ZURICH | September 3rd, 2020 – Singapore’s energy company SP Group (SP) today announced a strategic investment in The Mobility House AG (TMH) to explore smart charging (V1G) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) feasibility in Singapore. SP will leverage TMH’s expertise and technology in Europe and the United States to boost Singapore’s electric mobility capabilities, enabling its energy system to integrate more renewable energy and ultimately mitigate climate change.

Drake Star Partners acted as the financial advisor to The Mobility House in this European-Asian cross-border transaction. Following numerous landmark deals within the global Mobility and EV Charging domain, and despite the current challenging market conditions due to COVID-19, Drake Star Partners successfully leveraged its global investor network and sector expertise to find the best strategic and financial partner for The Mobility House to support and accelerate their R&D and international roll-out efforts. Despite COVID-19, we have managed an efficient, but virtual, fundraising process with all the European and Asian deal teams involved.

Operating from Munich, Zurich and Belmont (California), TMH is a technology company that provides a non-proprietary software for integrating vehicle batteries into power grids using intelligent charging and storage solutions. The collaboration with SP, a leading energy utilities group in the Asia Pacific, expands TMH’s reach into Asia. Together, SP and TMH aim to accelerate the goal of a zero-emission future on a global scale and realise the commercial integration of electric vehicles into the energy market.

With its hardware-agnostic Charging and Energy Management system, ChargePilot, TMH created the basis for a uni- and bi-directional integration of electric vehicles into the power grid. The system not only manages the grid-optimised charging process of vehicles but has also been marketing over 3,000 stationary vehicle batteries commercially in various energy markets since 2016, while always considering cycling costs and battery aging. ChargePilot has also been successfully implemented in several hundred projects in Europe and the USA while utilising the latest, advanced cyber security methods. The collaboration between SP and TMH will add value to existing partnerships with international car manufacturers, paving the way for a zero-emission future.

“V2G is the basis for the energy world of the future – and thanks to our intelligent software, our partners will be able to access it and make use of all the opportunities it holds. With SP on board, it gives me great pleasure to see all those years of hard work at The Mobility House pay off and that we will now be able to cover a global market”, said Thomas Raffeiner, CEO and founder of The Mobility House.

In Singapore, the phasing-out of Internal Combustion Engine vehicles by 2040 will accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and the rollout of more EV charging points. With the Singapore government’s target to increase solar penetration to reach 2GWp by 2030, integrating V2G technology into the national grid can be the key to managing the intermittency of renewables while maintaining grid stability and reliability.

Similarly, the ambitious climate target of the EU achieving climate neutrality by 2050 and the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels can be achieved by focusing on renewable energy sources and integrating EVs into the grid. This investment therefore not only brings Singapore a step closer towards lowering the national carbon footprint but will subsequently bring great benefits to a cleaner energy future worldwide.

The investment of SP follows the financial commitment of the European Investment Bank (EIB) that was announced on August 18, 2020. EIB and TMH, have signed a EUR 15 million financing agreement to promote the integration of electric vehicles into the energy markets. The loan will allow TMH to push ahead with the R&D for its intelligent Charging and Energy Management system ChargePilot, thereby supporting the rollout of electric vehicles along with their cost-effective and optimised integration into the power grid in Europe. The transaction is supported by the InnovFin Energy Demonstration Project facility, which is funded under the EU’s current research and innovation programme Horizon 2020.

“Another transaction with a leading energy transition player” said Dominique Houde, Partner for Mobility & Energy Transition at Drake Star Amsterdam.

Dominique Houde continues: “This transaction is another clear example of how the sector is evolving at a global scale. As the electric mobility sector is quickly scaling up, the use of the most advanced and effective software platforms for active storage management, smart charging for large fleets, including at bus depots, and Vehicle to Grid Integration (V2G) becomes essential. The Mobility House sits at the intersection of sustainable transportation and the energy sector, and is a leader in that field. Importantly, it is ideally positioned to accommodate the rapid growth in EV charging infrastructure and storage, increasingly considered as a key asset class by institutional investors. For Drake Star Partners this transaction is the latest of an ongoing series of Mobility & Energy Transition-related landmark transactions including investors and buyers globally. Understanding the continuously increasing complexity of sustainable transportation has become one of the main reasons Drake Star is the leading advisor where Mobility meets Energy Transition.”

Drake Star Partners team: Frank Verbeek, Dominique Houde, Bas Hendriks, Thomas Smal.

Inquiries

For further inquiries, please contact

Dominique Houde or Bas Hendriks:
Dominique.Houde@drakestar.com; Bas.Hendriks@drakestar.com

About SP Group

SP Group is a leading energy utilities group in the Asia Pacific. It owns and operates electricity and gas transmission and distribution businesses in Singapore and Australia, and district cooling businesses in Singapore and China. SP Group is committed to providing customers with reliable and efficient energy utilities services. About 1.5 million industrial, commercial and residential customers in Singapore benefit from SP Group’s world-class transmission, distribution and market support services. These networks are amongst the most reliable and cost-effective world-wide. SP Group also drives digital solutions to empower customers to manage their utilities, reduce consumption and save cost.

For more information, please visit www.spgroup.com.sg

About The Mobility House

The goal of The Mobility House is to shape an emission-free energy and mobility future. We integrate vehicle batteries into the power grid using intelligent charging and energy solutions. This way, we promote the development of renewable energies, stabilise the power grid, and make electric mobility more affordable. The technology company was founded in 2009 and operates globally from its sites in Munich, Zurich and Belmont (CA). We support our private and business customers on their way to electromobility through the planning and building process as well as the operation of an individual charging infrastructure. As a neutral supplier, we work together with many partners such as charging infrastructure manufacturers, installation companies, back-end system operators, energy suppliers and automobile manufacturers. Our intelligent Charging and Energy Management system ChargePilot enables our customers and partners to integrate electric vehicles into the grid in a way that is both grid-optimised and future-proof.

For more information visit www.mobilityhouse.com