HeyCharge secures multimillion European Innovation Council grant

The European Innovation Council (EIC) states that it ‘is the EU’s flagship funding programme for high-impact startups and SMEs developing breakthrough technologies.’ The EIC has identified such a concept in HeyCharge’s charging solution: the German company provides a fully offline charging system for basement car parks in office buildings and multi-family residential properties.

HeyCharge was founded in Munich in 2020 and has built its business around its patented ‘SecureCharge’ technology. The startup primarily offers reliable charging stations for basement or semi-basement car parks, where poor or non-existent mobile network and Wi-Fi coverage is common. “Conventional EV chargers require constant internet connectivity for authentication and billing, making them unreliable in these settings and expensive to install due to the communications infrastructure they demand: network cabling, routers, specialist IT labour, and ongoing maintenance contracts,” HeyCharge explains.

The company’s charging platform, however, operates entirely offline—using ‘patented one-time cryptographic tokens generated on the user’s smartphone for secure authentication’. Furthermore, no additional communication infrastructure is required.

“Nearly half of Europe’s population lives in apartment buildings, and most of them park underground — exactly where internet-dependent chargers fail,” said Chris Cardé, Founder and CEO of HeyCharge. “Our technology works 100% reliably even in underground garages, and because we’ve eliminated the need for communications infrastructure — the cabling, the specialist labour, the ongoing maintenance — we cut installation costs by more than 40%.”

HeyCharge states that its technology has already been deployed at around 130 locations and 2,500 parking spaces in Germany. The solution can either be used and operated under the HeyCharge brand or integrated via SDKs and APIs. In 2024, HeyCharge announced a charging partnership with MEAG (link in German), part of the Munich Re Group, and in 2025, a collaboration with the housing company Vonovia.

In addition to the €6.3 million of private funding the company has raised so far—including investments from BMW i Ventures, Statkraft Ventures, and Y Combinator—HeyCharge is now receiving an additional €2.5 million from the EIC Accelerator. These funds are earmarked for a 24-month project aimed at advancing the SecureCharge FLEX platform from its current technology readiness level (TRL 7) to TRL 8. The following steps are planned:

• Development and validation of advanced energy management functions, including dynamic load management, load control, dynamic tariffs, and bidirectional (V2G) charging capabilities
• Integration and interoperability testing with partner platforms and third-party hardware systems
• Large-scale pilot projects in multiple European countries to validate performance across different building types and under varying grid conditions
• Preparation for certification in multiple countries and compliance with regulatory requirements for an EU-wide market launch
• Recruitment of installers and operators across Europe through a franchise model

“The EIC Accelerator is not just funding — it’s a signal from Europe’s most rigorous innovation programme that our approach to democratising EV charging is ready to scale,” said Dr. Robert Lasowski, Co-founder and CBDO of HeyCharge. “We’ve proven that eliminating communications infrastructure makes charging both more reliable and more affordable. Now we’re taking that from proven deployments to mass-market adoption across the continent.” 

Source: Information via email