Turin, May 19, 2021 – LIFTT and Club degli Investitori put on the plate respectively 610,000 and 540,000 dollars in support of Electra Vehicles, Inc. company with aerospace DNA (the CEO and co-founder Fabrizio Martini has a past in NASA) and already present in USA and Japan.

The assumption on which Electra Vehicles is developing its business is objective: in the next 5-10 years the main asset for automotive companies, the heart of every car of the future, will no longer be the engine, but the battery.

Hence the intuition of the “brain for batteries”, the intelligent mind for batteries: starting from the NASA projects on the “Venus Rovers”, dedicated to the “road” exploration of Venus, Electra has developed an advanced software for controlling the batteries, for any chemistry and format, based on artificial intelligence (AI) which increases their duration, useful life, and safety.

Electra, based in Boston, poses the theme of A.I. within the irreversible global electrification process and proposes software solutions aimed at improving energy systems and developing an “intelligent” battery pack, such as the EVE-Ai 360 ° Adaptive Controls control system, a proprietary and revolutionary algorithm that offers solutions optimal to meet the demand for high performance, reliable performance and for a better and increasingly sustainable environment over time.

Thanks to EVE-Ai, what until now was considered a mere accumulator of energy is transformed into a “thinking” organism, with a sensational improvement in performance including the extension of the mileage in km of about 28% per single charge. , the 30% reduction of the recharging time, the extension of the battery life. Also to be considered is the direct communication with ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems), omnipresent in all vehicles, and ideal for self-driving vehicles.

Electrification is a paradigm shift that represents the main growth driver of the market and implies a total remodeling of the sector, favoring the growth and diffusion of new players and new business models. European battery manufacturers are investing huge amounts of resources to increase regional production capacity. On the investment front, this sector therefore attracts a growing amount of capital: according to Pitchbook, electric vehicle startups raised $ 3.9 billion in the third quarter of 2020, up 67% year-on-year, driven by strong enthusiasm of private and public investors towards the electrification of transport resulting from the adoption of battery electric vehicle technology. In addition, internal R&D and corporate investments drive much of the capital invested in this technology area.

Fundamental in this operation is the role of “facilitator” played by the Piedmont Internationalization Center, which put the start-up in contact with LIFTT, very active in monitoring the innovation sector in the automotive field, which historically sees Turin as an area suited. And it is in Turin that Electra intends to open its own office soon.

The investment by LIFTT and Club degli Investitori responds to this need and is totally in line with market trends (in 2027 over 50% of the vehicles produced globally will be hybrid or electric, for a total of approximately 54 million of units) and with the political priorities expressed in the Green New Deal and the decarbonisation objectives by the European Union, and with the Next EU Generation objectives aimed at responding to the challenge of climate change and the protection of the quality of urban air together with new regulations on CO2 and NOx emissions from passenger cars. The remainder of the € 3.6 million round of Electra Vehicles was covered by US funds, including a semi-governmental body of the state of Massachusetts.