Case Study: Clarity Ventures' investment in commercial fleet electrification

The opportunity

We first heard about FleetCharge in early 2023 through a cold email. Usually those go straight to the archive, but this one caught my attention.

The founder, James Park, had run logistics operations for a regional delivery company for 12 years. He'd tried to electrify their fleet in 2021 and hit a wall. Not because EVs didn't work – they did. But because the charging infrastructure was a complete mess.

His company had 200 delivery vans operating out of three depots. They'd bought 15 electric vans as a pilot. Sounds straightforward, right?

Except the charging systems available were designed for consumer use, not commercial fleets. They were expensive, slow to install, and had zero intelligence about route planning or load balancing. His maintenance team spent more time managing charging schedules than they did on actual vehicle maintenance.

The pilot stalled. The company went back to diesel.

But James couldn't let it go. He knew the economics of electric fleets could work – lower fuel costs, less maintenance, quieter operations. The problem was the infrastructure and software layer sitting between the vehicles and the grid.

So he left his job and started FleetCharge.

When we met him six months later, he'd signed up three regional logistics companies as beta customers and had working installations at two sites. His pitch was simple: we make fleet electrification actually work for the companies that need it most.

We led their $6.8M Series A in August 2023.

The challenge

The commercial fleet market is massive. UPS alone has 125,000 vehicles. FedEx has 200,000. Add in local delivery companies, service fleets, municipal vehicles, and you're talking millions of vehicles that could be electrified.

But most fleet operators are in the same boat James was. They want to electrify – the economics make sense, the emissions reductions are substantial, and in many cities regulations are pushing them that direction anyway.

The infrastructure just isn't built for how fleets actually operate.

Consumer charging solutions assume you have one or two vehicles charging overnight at home. Fleet operators need to charge dozens of vehicles on tight schedules, often with staggered return times, and they need those vehicles ready for the next shift. Always.

The existing commercial charging options had serious gaps:

Installation took forever – six to nine months from order to operation wasn't unusual, with endless utility coordination and permitting headaches

The systems were dumb – they couldn't optimize charging based on electricity rates, route schedules, or grid capacity

Nobody handled the utility side – fleet operators had to figure out demand charges, load management, and utility interconnection on their own

The upfront costs were brutal – $500K+ for a mid-size depot installation before you even bought the vehicles

FleetCharge needed to solve all of it. And they needed to do it profitably while competing against companies with 10x their funding.

The approach

James's insight was that fleet charging wasn't really a hardware problem. The chargers themselves were becoming commoditized. The real value was in the system design, the software intelligence, and handling all the messy stuff that fleet operators didn't want to deal with.

FleetCharge built their model around three core pieces:

Streamlined installation

Instead of custom-designing every depot from scratch, FleetCharge created a modular system that could be spec'd and installed in weeks, not months. They pre-negotiated utility agreements, standardized permitting approaches by region, and used their own crews who'd done this dozens of times.

One customer told us their previous charging vendor had quoted nine months for installation. FleetCharge did it in seven weeks.

That speed matters enormously. Every month a fleet operator waits is another month of diesel costs and emissions.

Intelligent charging management

This is where the software made the difference. FleetCharge's system integrated with fleet management platforms to know exactly when each vehicle would return, what its charge level was, and when it needed to be ready for the next route.

Then it optimized charging schedules to minimize demand charges (which can be brutal for commercial customers), take advantage of time-of-use rates, and ensure vehicles were always ready when needed.

For a 50-vehicle depot, that optimization typically saved $40-60K annually compared to basic "plug in and charge" approaches. Over a 10-year lifespan, that's real money.

Charging-as-a-Service model

Here's where FleetCharge really differentiated. Instead of asking fleet operators to drop half a million dollars upfront, they offered a per-vehicle monthly fee that covered everything – hardware, installation, software, maintenance, and even utility coordination.

Fleet operators just paid $400-600 per vehicle per month (depending on usage and depot size) and FleetCharge handled the rest.

This changed the conversation from "can we afford the capital investment?" to "does this monthly cost beat our current fuel and maintenance expenses?" And for most fleets making the switch, it absolutely did.

The results

Eighteen months after our investment, FleetCharge's traction exceeded even our optimistic projections:

87 fleet customers across 14 states (up from 3 beta customers at investment)

4,200+ commercial EVs charging on FleetCharge infrastructure daily

23 million miles driven electrically, avoiding approximately 8,900 tons of CO2 annually

34% average reduction in total fleet operating costs for customers (fuel + maintenance + charging infrastructure)

62 days average installation timeline (compared to 180-270 days for traditional commercial charging installations)

But what really validated the model was the customer mix. FleetCharge wasn't just signing up early adopter tech companies. They had regional delivery services, utility companies, municipal governments, and food distribution companies – the kinds of fleet operators that move slowly and need proven solutions.

When you're winning customers in industries that typically wait for everyone else to go first... that's a signal.

The unexpected benefit

About a year into our investment, James mentioned something interesting during a board call. Several FleetCharge customers were using the system as a recruiting and retention tool.

Drivers actually wanted to drive the electric vehicles. They were quieter, smoother, had better acceleration, and didn't smell like diesel. One delivery company told FleetCharge that driver turnover dropped 18% after they electrified half their fleet.

We hadn't even considered that angle. But in an industry struggling with driver shortages, anything that helps with retention has real value beyond the direct cost savings.

What we learned

Solve the whole problem, not just the sexy part. The technology – the actual chargers – wasn't FleetCharge's innovation. Their innovation was handling all the unglamorous stuff that made electrification hard: permitting, utility coordination, installation logistics, and ongoing management.

Financing structure matters as much as technology. The Charging-as-a-Service model removed the biggest barrier to adoption. Fleet operators could now compare monthly costs directly instead of justifying massive capital expenditures.

Speed compounds. FleetCharge's fast installation timeline meant customers started seeing savings and emissions reductions months earlier. That gave them more reference customers faster, which accelerated sales, which funded more installation capacity. The flywheel effect was real.

Regulations create urgency but economics drive adoption. Several states have mandated fleet electrification timelines, but FleetCharge's fastest-growing markets were actually places without mandates. When the economics work clearly, companies move faster than regulations require.

The impact beyond the numbers

There's a warehouse in New Jersey where FleetCharge installed charging infrastructure for a regional food distributor. Sixty refrigerated delivery trucks operating out of a depot that's been there since the 1980s.

The company's CFO told us they'd been looking at electrification for three years but kept hitting dead ends. Too expensive, too complicated, too risky. When FleetCharge came in with their model, the decision got easy.

Six months after installation, those 60 trucks are saving the company $180,000 annually in fuel and maintenance. They've already ordered another 40 electric trucks for their other depots.

That's 100 diesel trucks off the road. In one company. Because someone finally made the transition straightforward.

Multiply that across thousands of fleet operators and you start to see how transportation actually decarbonizes. Not through consumer EV adoption alone – though that matters too – but through commercial fleets that operate millions of vehicles and can make the switch when the infrastructure works.

What's next

FleetCharge is now raising their Series B to expand into heavy-duty trucks and to launch in three additional countries. They're also piloting vehicle-to-grid technology that lets fleet vehicles provide grid services during idle time, creating an additional revenue stream.

The heavy-duty expansion is particularly exciting. Long-haul trucking is one of the hardest transport sectors to decarbonize, but regional delivery trucks, port vehicles, and last-mile logistics are all ready for electrification now. FleetCharge's model translates directly to those use cases.

More broadly, they're proving that the mobility transition isn't just about better vehicles. It's about the infrastructure and business models that make those vehicles practical for the companies that operate them at scale.

That's not glamorous. But it's how things actually change.

Investment details

• Investment date: August 2023

• Investment amount: $6.8M Series A (led round)

• Sector: Mobility

• Climate impact: 8,900+ tons CO2 avoided annually (growing rapidly)

• Current status: Active portfolio company, Series B raising Q1 2026

Clarity Ventures invests in visionary companies mitigating climate change across six sectors. Interested in learning more about our mobility investments? Get in touch.