EnviroSpark is a leader in turnkey design, installation, and operation of electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions. And the company is responsible for more than 7,000 charging stations so far. To learn more about the company, Pulse 2.0 interviewed Aaron Luque, founder and CEO of EnviroSpark.
Aaron Luque’s Background
Aaron Luque graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in 2007 and then founded Remetco, a global recycling company with a primary focus on the healthcare sector.
“I served as President and Board Chairman of Remetco, growing the business to operate in six countries. I managed the day-to-day operations for Remetco until 2014,” said Luque. “At that point, I went back to school to earn my MBA from UGA and founded EnviroSpark with my wife Stephanie, whom I met while we were undergraduates at Georgia Tech. I still serve as Board Chairman of Remetco and still retain ownership.”
Idea Behind EnviroSpark
In 2014, Luque said he was at a turning point in his career. After founding, building, and running Remetco, Luque knew he wanted to stay in the sustainability space, but did not know his next move.
“It was around this time that my wife Stephanie and I got married. And, as all newlyweds do, we spent our honeymoon brainstorming and workshopping business ideas,” quipped Luque. “We had seen the research on the potential impact mass EV adoption would have on carbon emissions, energy independence, and air quality — so we knew we wanted to do our part in addressing challenges to mass adoption. We saw two major barriers to EV adoption: limited awareness of the benefits of EV ownership, and the fear of getting stuck somewhere without a way to charge.”
The Luques saw an opportunity to solve both problems through EV charging infrastructure deployment. As people see more charging stations out on the road or where they live, range anxiety diminishes, and they feel more secure. Plus, while installing EV chargers on properties, EnviroSpark is able to educate drivers on their benefits through events and provided materials. With a $5,000 initial investment, they founded EnviroSpark as a solution to simplify the EV charging process.
Challenges in Building the Company
What were some of the challenges in building the company?
Luque informed me that in the early years of EnviroSpark, EV adoption was much lower and was not on most property owners’ radar. Luque and his team spent a significant portion of time focusing on educating both drivers and property managers.
Today, EnviroSpark continues to educate drivers on the many benefits of EV ownership, including cost savings and better air quality.
EnviroSpark also faced the challenge of explaining how investing in charging stations was important to property managers, despite EV sales being less than 1% of all car sales. As EV ownership and national attention on the industry continue to increase, property owners are much more on board as they see the immediate need for adding chargers to their properties and do not want to lose potential tenants to their competition.
Core Products
EnviroSpark is a true turnkey EV charging solutions provider. The company specializes in every step of the EV charging installation process: site acquisition, design, engineering, installation, operation, hardware, software, and long-term maintenance.
“As we are a licensed general and electrical contractor, we guide our clients through the entire process and provide visibility at every step of the way through our client portal software solution,” Luque explained. “We provide customized charging solutions for multi-family, commercial, office, and government properties. Our core product offerings include our networked level two and level three charging stations that include real-time utilization reporting/monitoring, access control capabilities, and an easy-to-use driver interface.”
Evolution of the Technology
Initially, EnviroSpark specialized in installation for other network providers, including Tesla and Electrify America. In 2020, EnviroSpark expanded the business to include its own network charging hardware/software solutions, designed based on lessons learned from the first seven years of operation. EnviroSpark’s solutions have a keen focus on ease of use and reliability. And the company is currently expanding its in-house software team to continue to evolve with the industry.
“As our organization has scaled and the volume of projects has grown, we’ve found it necessary to evolve our internal tools and processes to meet these demands,” Luque noted. “Our solution is a custom project management software specific to EV charging infrastructure deployment. The software allows us to track our projects fully from site acquisition to installation. We provide our customers with visibility throughout the process and provide charger use data once the installation is completed.”
Biggest Milestones
What have been some of EnviroSpark’s biggest milestones?
– Between 2017-2019, EnviroSpark installed over 2,500 charging stations for Tesla Motors, becoming the largest installer for the nation’s largest network.
– In 2020, EnviroSpark expanded its business to include EnviroSpark Networks — their own networked charging solution designed and perfected based on lessons they learned over the first seven years in the industry.
– The 2020 seed round funding enabled the company to create a proof of concept of the network offering, which set the groundwork for a Series A investment in 2021.
– The success with the Series A investment led investors to triple their investment in EnviroSpark within six months.
– Last year, EnviroSpark was awarded a $500 million GSA bid to design and install EV charging stations run by federal agencies throughout the Southeast as the federal fleet moves towards electrification.
– Last year, EnviroSpark signed a deal with Starwood Capital Group to install over 400 charging stations at more than 80 multi-family home properties across the nation.
– In the last two years, revenue has increased over 300% and the company has expanded the team from around 15 to over 100 employees.
Customer Success Story
EnviroSpark has seen many success stories installing EV charging stations in multi-family properties. Since over 85% of charging happens in the home, EnviroSpark found that providing access to chargers at apartment complexes and condos has an immense impact on their residents’ willingness to make the switch to EV.
Prior to installing the stations, the complexes may have had one or two Teslas in their parking garages. When EnviroSpark revisits those sites six months later, it’s “astounding to see the increase in the number of EVs.”
Beyond the multi-family space, EnviroSpark has partnered with several nonprofits in the Atlanta area — notably the Georgia Aquarium and the Woodruff Arts Center — to install EV charging stations at their properties. EnviroSpark also works with local municipalities, such as the City of Dunwoody, Ga., to provide public charging stations in parks and communal spaces.
Funding
Last year, EnviroSpark raised an additional $10 million investment through a funding round with Ultra Capital. This funding round brought the total investment to $15 million. Investors include current and former executives from Georgia Power, The Home Depot, Chick-fil-A, Dealer.com, and Post Properties.
Total addressable market (TAM)
What is the total addressable market that EnviroSpark is pursuing? Luque pointed out that it was over $12 billion.
Differentiation from the Competition
How does EnviroSpark differentiate itself from the competition? What separates EnviroSpark from everyone else in the industry specifically is the direct (rather than outsourced or tangential) involvement and specialization in every step of the process to install EV charging infrastructure.
“We are a full turnkey solutions provider with nine years of experience guiding our decision-making. While other EV charging companies focus solely on the hardware and/or software, we work with properties from initial concept to installing the chargers to long-term operation and maintenance,” Luque replied. “A major, and valid, concern in the industry right now is charger reliability.”
This concern is tackled two-fold: Many reliability issues can be prevented upfront, whether that is ensuring proper electrical standards or taking proactive steps to ensure uptime. And as a coast-to-coast licensed general contractor and EVITP-approved electrical contractor, EnviroSpark’s team is out in the parking garages and parking lots to do the dirty work, in addition to the glamorous hardware and software side of the business. By managing the installation process itself, EnviroSpark ensures that the electrical infrastructure is properly set for the chargers and decreases the chance of charger downtime.
For all of EnviroSpark’s customers, they offer long-term maintenance programs. EnviroSpark has remote monitoring capabilities for networked stations as well as the service line number on other stations in order to ensure that if there is a down station, they can roll out and ensure acceptable uptimes.
“With new federal standards requiring over 97% uptime, the industry is scrambling to ensure this is feasible. We have seen that our upfront installation standards and our long-term support systems allow us to exceed this requirement,” Luque pointed out.
Future Company Goals
What are some of EnviroSpark’s future company goals?
“EnviroSpark is rolling out custom-built software and a new mobile app by the end of the year that will leverage nearly 10 years of the driver, site host, utility, installation and design experience to meet the needs of the industry in a way that no one without our experience could do. And the company is building features that no current systems are able to provide.
In the past two years, EnviroSpark has scaled up from 15 to over 115 employees. By the end of 2023, EnviroSpark expects to have grown to over 200 employees, between Atlanta and our new regional offices in Austin and Charlotte.
Our goal is to become a household name when it comes to EV charging. We will make a name for ourselves as the EV charging provider of the Southeast United States while continuing to expand our presence in other markets across the nation,” Luque concluded. “Over the next three years, we plan to expand our nationwide charger network by approximately 35,000 charging stations. This year, we have expanded our operations to two new regional offices (Charlotte and Austin) and foresee opening up three more in the next 18-24 months.”
