The pitch sounds almost too neat: turn millions of parked electric cars and home batteries into a kind of decentralized power plant, one that helps stabilize the grid while paying owners for the privilege. Axle Energy, a London startup chasing that vision, just landed $25 million to scale the idea beyond the UK market.
Energize Capital led the Series A round, which closed recently and brought back earlier backers Accel, Picus Capital, and Eka Ventures. The funding comes at a moment when European regulators are scrambling to manage the volatility that comes with renewable-heavy grids, making Axle's approach—connecting distributed energy assets to wholesale electricity markets—particularly timely.
For Axle, the math looks compelling, at least on paper. The company says it now coordinates more than 300,000 devices—EVs, batteries, heat pumps—representing over 2 gigawatts of flexible capacity. Consumers enrolled in its platform have collectively pocketed millions through grid services programs, though the company didn't break out individual earnings or detail how those payments compare to what participants might make through competing platforms.
The Backers Double Down
This marks Energize Capital's first publicly disclosed bet on Axle, a notable entry given the climate-focused firm's track record in energy infrastructure. Accel, which led Axle's $9 million seed round back in mid-2024, returned with another check. Picus Capital and Eka Ventures, both aboard since a $1.6 million pre-seed in 2023, also participated.
The fresh capital brings Axle's total raised to roughly $35.6 million since founders Karl Bach and Archy de Berker launched the company in early 2023. Accel partner Zhenya Loginov joined the board earlier this year, a sign of the firm's confidence ahead of the close.
Bach's background—leading growth at Bulb, the UK energy supplier that later collapsed—gives him an insider's view of how utility business models crack under pressure. De Berker, who holds a PhD in neuroscience from University College London, brings a different lens: an academic's comfort with complex systems and optimization problems. Together, they're betting that the grid's future lies not in massive centralized plants but in orchestrating millions of small, networked assets.
What They're Actually Building
Axle's platform is API-first, a technical detail that matters because it allows the startup to plug into hardware from dozens of manufacturers without owning any of it. The company partners with OEMs, utilities, EV charger makers, installers, and fleet operators to enroll devices into wholesale markets, ancillary services, capacity auctions, and distribution network programs.
Translation: when the grid needs power fast, or when supply exceeds demand and prices plummet, Axle's software can discharge batteries, pause EV charging, or cycle heat pumps up and down. The devices earn revenue; Axle takes a cut.
The startup also runs a direct-to-consumer virtual power plant in the UK, currently in public beta. Battery owners get £1 per kilowatt-hour during grid stress events, with a £10 monthly minimum. Compatible systems include hardware from Sigenergy, FoxESS, GivEnergy, SolaX, Solis, and SolarEdge—a list that's grown through a steady drumbeat of partnership announcements this year.
Perhaps more interesting than the partnerships is Axle's regulatory footwork. The company proposed P483, a modification to the UK's Balancing and Settlement Code that went live late last year. The change enables asset-level metering for non-half-hourly systems like EV chargers—something Elexon, the code administrator, called a "breakthrough for flexibility provision." Regulatory wins like that can matter more than funding rounds in markets where the rules determine who gets paid.
A Crowded, Fast-Moving Market
Axle isn't alone in this space, not by a long shot. Kraken Flex, the flexibility arm of Octopus Energy, reported coordinating north of 270,000 controllable devices as of early last year. Kaluza, spun out of OVO, launched a platform for OEMs in the spring. ev.energy runs managed charging programs across the UK and US.
The European market has seen a flurry of capital pour into energy flexibility startups recently. Entrix raised €43 million, Hybrid Greentech pulled in €15 million, and metiundo closed a €40 million round, according to reports from EU-Startups. Investors are clearly buying the narrative that distributed energy resources represent the next infrastructure buildout.
Accel has estimated that roughly 75 million eligible assets exist across Europe and the US—EVs, batteries, heat pumps—representing some 375 gigawatts of potential flexible capacity. That's a staggering number, though it assumes near-perfect enrollment and coordination, which seems optimistic. The real question is how much of that capacity Axle can actually aggregate, and whether the economics hold up when everyone's chasing the same devices.
What Comes Next
Axle plans to use the funding to expand across the UK and push into international markets. More distributed energy resources, more OEM partnerships, more fleet operators—the playbook is familiar, if not exactly groundbreaking.
The harder challenge may be regulatory, not technical. Every market has different rules about who can participate in grid services, how settlements work, and what data flows where. Navigating that patchwork while keeping the platform simple enough for consumers to actually use? That's the trick.
Whether this Series A funds the early stages of a genuine grid transformation or just another aggregation platform fighting for margin in a commoditizing market—well, that depends on execution, regulatory tailwinds, and whether consumers actually care enough to enroll their cars and batteries. The infrastructure is there. The incentives, for now, seem aligned. But plenty of well-funded startups have discovered that changing how energy moves is harder than the pitch deck makes it sound.
