Electric Era, the manufacturer of PowerNode EV fast charging stations, has raised $11.5 million in a Series A financing round led by HSBC Asset Management. Other participants include SQM Lithium Ventures, Blackhorn Ventures and Proeza Ventures. The new funding brings the company’s total funding to $19 million.

Electric Era will use the new funding to accelerate PowerNode charging station production and deployments. The PowerNode includes built-in battery buffering to reduce the power draw on the electrical grid—this can help avoid local grid infrastructure upgrades. The company says installation of a PowerNode charging system can be completed in as little as 16 weeks.

The company is targeting convenience stores as its first customers. A Portland, Oregon Plaid Pantry store will be the first site to go live, in early September. The company says convenience stores in nine states are expected to be online before the end of the year, and it aims to have more than 10,000 PowerNode charging stations installed at convenience stores across the US by the end of the decade.

“We’re building the future of car refill by tackling the key challenges of adoption, including lack of easy access to reliable charging stations and too much dependence on our nation’s overburdened electrical grids,” said Quincy Lee, CEO and founder of Electric Era and a former Manager of Engineering at SpaceX. “PowerNode-OS leverages Silicon Valley software principles used to safely launch NASA astronauts in order to bring fast, reliable and affordable charging stations to retail locations where drivers are already used to stopping.”

Source: Electric Era Technologies