WEX, a Portland-based payments-solution provider and one of Maine’s few publicly traded companies, has launched a new corporate venture arm to invest in startups building the critical back-end infrastructure necessary to drive commercial adoption of electric vehicle fleets.
The company’s Board of Directors on July 27 green-lit the creation of WEX Venture Capital, authorizing it to invest up to $100 million through 2025 in early-stage startups working on solutions around energy transition, such as fleet electrification and EV charging infrastructure.
“The energy transition will benefit from innovation in fleet management offerings, creating flexibility for our customers to seamlessly charge or fuel at work, home, and en route,” Melissa Smith, WEX’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “This is a crucial moment for WEX and the larger fleet industry, and we’re proud to help lead this transition.”
WEX Venture Capital will be led by David Klein, who left his YC-backed startup Parade in June 2022 to join WEX as senior manager of corporate strategy.
The news signals a shift in WEX’s strategy. Historically focused on growing via internal investment and acquisitions, the creation of WEX Venture Capital marks WEX’s first foray into nurturing innovation externally—though not necessarily its first time talking about it (here’s an article I wrote in 2014).
By creating WEX Venture Capital, WEX can now play a more meaningful role in the greater EV ecosystem as the pace of EV adoption reaches an inflection point.
“In the years to come, the energy transition will transform how we move employees and goods around the economy,” Jay Dearborn, WEX’s chief strategy officer, said. “WEX Venture Capital positions WEX to not only serve our commercial customers with the innovation we drive from within, but to also participate and help unlock rich innovation that is happening across the ecosystem.”
The venture arm plans to not only invest in innovative new companies, but expose them to potential commercial opportunities by tapping into WEX’s existing ecosystem of more than 600,000 commercial fleet customers, which operate more than 18 million vehicles worldwide (source: WEX’s most recent annual report), according to Dearborn.
“This isn’t experimenting willy-nilly,” Dearborn told Bloomberg, adding that WEX has been focused on finding ways to help customers transition to EVs for about two years. “It’s betting on this transition for decades to come.”
WEX Venture Capital has already begun deploying its capital, recently making minority investments in Netherlands-based Chargetrip, which specializes in EV fleet range prediction and routing technology, and UK-based ev.energy, which recently announced its $33 million Series B funding, which it’ll use to continue developing its EV managed charging software platform.
“Chargetrip’s deep expertise in range prediction and routing technology for EV fleets and ev.energy’s managed charging platform are both critical in helping our clients optimize their EV investments,” said Carlos Carriedo, COO International at WEX. “We look forward to collaborating with Chargetrip and ev.energy to help strengthen their first-mover advantage in market awareness, product maturity, and traction as fleets convert to EVs over time.”
