Better Place Lands $200M in New Equity Financing

Electric-vehicle infrastructure developer Better Place adds $200 million to its war chest through a Series C equity financing from a consortium of top-tier investors and partners, nearly doubling the company’s valuation to $2.25 billion since its last financing in January 2010.

Since its founding in 2007, Better Place says it has raised more than $750 million of equity financing in an economic climate where investors continue to seek a competitive alternative to oil.

Better Place near launch of EV support network.

The privately owned company says it will launch the first nationwide EV networks early next year in Israel and Denmark, where it will offer consumers recharging stations and other services meant to make EVs competitive with gasoline-powered cars.

Better Place will begin commercial service in the second quarter of 2012 in Australia, starting in Canberra.

It says it will use the latest funds to expand into Western Europe, where government policies supporting EVs and interest in public/private partnerships are the strongest. The company says it also will continue advancing deployment projects in Northern California, Southern China, Japan, Ontario, Canada and Hawaii.

CEO Shai Agassi says Better Place has worked hard over the past four years to engineer and build a technology solution that competes with oil-based transportation.

“We are entering the next phase of growth for our company where we prove that our solution works, that it’s in demand, and that it scales as we begin to push into new markets and attract new investors and new partners,” he says in a statement.

New investors in the latest Series C funding include General Electric and UBS AG. Existing shareholders joining the latest round include Israel Corp., HSBC Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Ofer Group and Maniv Energy Capital.

Better Place Chairman Idan Ofer says the transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2011.

“With this round, our shareholder base now includes the world’s largest banks, blue-chip asset managers and leading industrial holding companies,” Ofer says.

Better Place says it will have demonstrated its solution by the end of the year across four continents including locations in Europe, the Middle East, the U.S., Australia, China and Japan.

In Israel, Better Place says more than 400 corporations, representing a potential of 80,000 employee cars, have signed letters of intent to begin switching their fleets to Better Place as the EVs and service become available.

Momentum also is strong in Denmark, where the company has received more than 1,000 pre-orders from private and business customers.

Better Place has reached agreements on infrastructure deployment and fleet transitions with 50 of the country’s 98 municipalities covering 69% of the population.