Nîmes: the start-up Load Stations helps companies manage their electric vehicle fleet

La start-up Load Stations édite une solution intégrée de gestion des parcs électriques. DR – DR

The Nîmes start-up, created two years ago, allows companies to achieve integrated management of their electric vehicle fleets. The company notably publishes software allowing its customers to view their recharges, whether in the company, at the homes of its employees, or outside.

Helping businesses make the switch to electric energy. This is the mission given to the start-up Load Stations, based in Nîmes, and hosted at the city’s incubator, Bic Innovup. The start-up was created in 2022 by two former engineers from Engie Énergie, after three years of development.

"We are above all a software publisher, and offer companies global management solutions for electric mobility explains co-founder and CEO of the company, Virgile Arène. Our software allows you to connect and manage the company's fleet on all the charging stations for electric vehicles available on the market, whether at the company or at home collaborators."

Virgile Arène, co-founder of Load Stations. DR – DR

Concretely, the company has invented a connected socket which adapts to a normal socket, and allows the employer to reimburse only the current spent by this recharge at the home of the collaborater. This allows him to avoid installing a terminal at the employee's home, and maintain an overall vision of his network. "By using our connected home socket solutions, large groups divide their costs by 10 and gain flexibility. In fact, the installation of electrical terminals at home would cost them 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to make a big saving."

A recent fundraising of 1.2 million euros

The company publishes an application which allows employees of its client companies to edit expense reports resulting from recharges carried out on their vehicle. "Our software above all allows you to interconnect charging stations, including those which are public, in a car park or a service station for example, and require payment. The employer thus maintains a view of the management of pricing, whether by credit card or any other device."

The company, which currently has 8 employees, announced last February that it had raised 1.2 million euros in funds. For this, business angels contributed 670,000 euros; in the capital of the company, sum supplemented by a loan of 200,000,000 euros; carried out by the innovation branch of Crédit Agricole, and another of 300,000,000 euros; from BPI France. A sum that will allow the company to recruit, in its city and elsewhere, for its software development and commercial services. This will bring its number to 14 by the end of the semester.

A new, more significant fundraising should take place by the end of the year. It will enable the company to achieve its international ambitions. "The electric market is far from being saturated, we are only at the beginning", assure the founders, confident in their integrated solution. This allows them to project their business in North America and Morocco, the first country they target for their marketing.

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