Standard Fleet, a provider of fleet management solutions for electric vehicles (EVs), today announced that it has successfully raised $7 million in a seed funding round. The investment was led by UP2398 (founded by eBay’s Pierre Omidyar) and Canvas Ventures. It will enable Standard Fleet to expand its team and develop innovative tools, the company says. 

The company said electric vehicle companies Revel, MisterGreen Electric Lease and EV Access have already adopted Standard Fleet’s software.

With a focus on automating, securing and scaling electric fleet businesses, Standard Fleet aims to accelerate the adoption of EVs in various sectors, including rental car businesses, rideshare companies and leasing fleets.

“With the $7 million in seed funding, we aim to build a world-class team (from Tesla, Apple, Y Combinator, etc.) and give them the space to focus on our customers. The funding will also allow us to invest in expansion to support a wide range of automakers as exciting new EVs continue to enter the market,” David Hodge, founder and CEO of Standard Fleet, told VentureBeat. 

Hodge highlighted the key differentiator of his company’s approach to fleet management: Unlike legacy systems that necessitate physical vehicle installations, Standard Fleet uses cloud-based technology to communicate with EVs. 

The company’s fleet management mobile app allows customers to access vehicle telemetry, monitor and request reimbursement for charging expenses, manage vehicle app permissions and receive real-time alerts for issue resolution.

“We found that many businesses don’t use fleet tools because of the effort and cost,” Hodge told VentureBeat. “Tracking charging costs and being able to request reimbursement has a direct impact on the bottom line for our customers. We also have APIs, which are especially popular for our larger customers. One of our most popular features is provisioning access to vehicles and sending digital keys to drivers. In other cases, our tools manage charging hubs and charge delivery vehicles when power is cheapest, or business is busy.”

The company also revealed collaborative endeavors with EV fleet customers over the past two years with the aim of improving its fleet management software and gaining insights from nearly 100,000 electric vehicles. These endeavors encompass data extraction from vehicles without depleting batteries, and streamlining vehicle provisioning for drivers through an API.

Streamlining electric mobility through data-driven management 

According to Hodge, the company’s primary focus is to enable fleet owners to monitor the status of their vehicles. The company provides straightforward mobile tools that allow fleet owners to easily request reimbursement for charging costs directly retrieved from Tesla, for example. 

They can also schedule Tesla app access for their rental and leasing customers.

Standard Fleet announced that Revel, a Brooklyn-based electric mobility and infrastructure provider, has successfully integrated the company’s software into its operations. Revel manages its fleet of blue rideshare EVs in New York City using Standard Fleet’s technology. Standard Fleet claims that this has resulted in reduced urban emissions.

Similarly, MisterGreen Electric Lease, an Amsterdam-based EV leasing company, has partnered with Standard Fleet to optimize its operations, cut costs and pursue new business avenues. With a fleet of over 5,000 Teslas in Europe, MisterGreen aims to broaden accessibility to electric vehicles and ensure their operational efficiency for a wider customer base.

“Our tools give the MisterGreen operations teams more leverage to handle these challenges, which should translate to lower prices for their customers and more EVs on the road,” added Hodge. “We provide tools, dashboards and mobile apps to manage the fleet, detect issues, manage service, etc. As they grow to tens of thousands of EVs, MisterGreen will benefit from economies of scale from our tools.”

What’s next for Standard Fleet?

Hodge’s team favors conducting on-site visits to meticulously observe operations as it further develops its fleet management platform. This helps them, for example, collaborate with customers to identify and address security issues.

Hodge said that the company plans to make ongoing investments in expansion to accommodate more automakers as the market witnesses the introduction of exciting new EV models.

“We’re excited to publicly support a wider range of automakers, as we’ve built our nearly 100,000-vehicle fleet largely with Teslas,” he said. “We’re not announcing specifics here today, but our customers are asking us to support a wide range of vehicles with the software we’ve built.”