Electric car venture Better Place announced that it has secured $200 million through a Series C equity financing from a consortium of top-tier investors and partners. Since its founding in 2007, Shai Agassi’s start-up has raised more than $750 million of equity financing.
“With this round, our shareholder base now includes the world’s largest banks, blue chip asset managers and leading industrial holding companies,” said Idan Ofer, chairman of Better Place. “Our Board, as well as all of our investors, continues to be both confident and enthusiastic about the opportunity that Better Place presents. The highly competent Better Place team has the talent and technology to rapidly deploy its electric car network on a global scale. Our Board and investor base are committed to leveraging their vast networks, experience, and diverse set of skills to accelerate the global adoption of electric cars.”
The company said it will use the proceeds to expand into Western Europe while it continues to advance the company’s deployment projects in Northern California, Southern China, Japan, Canada and Hawaii.
Better Place is scheduled to launch its initial commercial service in Israel and Denmark early next year.
“We’ve worked hard over the past four years to engineer and build a technology solution that competes with oil-based transportation,” said Shai Agassi, Better Place founder and CEO. “We are entering the next phase of growth for our company where we prove that our solution works, that it’s in demand, and that it scales, as we begin to push into new markets and attract new investors and new partners. I believe that our investors should be applauded for having the vision to finance the future of transportation.”