EV charging start-up wins top prize at VentureLaunch accelerator – TechCentral.ie

EV charging start-up wins top prize at VentureLaunch accelerator

1 December 2021 |

Go Eve, a joint UCD and Imperial College London start-up, won the top prize of start-up of the year, and a €32,000 prize fund, after being declared overall winner of the 2021 UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme.

Go Eve is focused on commercialising a patent-pending ‘DockChain’ technology for charging electric vehicles (EVs) at scale. The DockChain innovation allows multiple parking spaces to be rapidly ‘electrified’ from one base power source with a daisy chain of inexpensive and simple charging points. The technology can significantly reduce the costs involved with charging large numbers of EVs, or where rapid vehicle turnaround is required, and can remove the operational inconvenience of moving vehicles around chargers.

The technology was originally invented by a team of academics and researchers led by Prof Robert Shorten at the UCD School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Prof Shorten subsequently moved to Imperial College London where the technology is being further advanced by him and his team. Go Eve is currently in the process of spinning-out from both universities as well as formalising the required knowledge transfer and intellectual property licence to the start-up.

Go Eve was founded by Hugh Sheehy, who completed the UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme, John Goodbody, Prof Robert Shorten, Dr Pietro Ferraro and Andrew Cullen.

“Our vision at Go Eve is to make every parking space capable of charging an EV using the DockChain technology,” said Sheehy. “This technology makes rapid DC charging possible for all parking spaces at little more than the cost of today’s slow AC charging infrastructure.

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“The technology has the potential to open up a whole number of use-cases, especially where large volumes of EVs are parked, such as for car rental fleet operators, large destination car parks in hotels and office buildings. Many other applications are being examined, from municipal parking to advanced vehicle-to-grid solutions.

“We currently plan to run three pilot programmes with three customers during 2022 and we are now seeking to secure seed investment of €3 million to support these pilot programmes, to support further product development and design and team expansion.”

Tom Flanagan, director of enterprise & commercialisation, NovaUCD, said: “Given the importance of climate action it is fantastic to see Go Eve which is developing an innovative technological solution in the area of sustainability win this year’s programme. We are also delighted to be working in collaboration with our colleagues in Imperial College London to commercialise this exciting DockChain technology. It has the potential to make a significant impact on how EVs are charged.”

The other participants on this year’s programme in addition to Go Eve were Blood Brothers, Eofis, FeetAI, giyst, La Casa, Nightleaf and PEARlabs.

Run by NovaUCD, Venturelaunch aims to support the creation and launch of sustainable and profitable new start-ups emerging from the University.

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This content was originally published here.