The archive · Climate & Energy · Strategic decision · 2020–2026
Monta bets EU AFIR makes tap-to-pay charging standard; €80M Series B
Danish EV-charging OS; bet AFIR's ad-hoc payment and data rules make its software the CPO compliance layer; €130M raised, 1M monthly sessions.
Monta
What the business is
Monta is an operating platform for EV charging: software for charge point operators, businesses and hardware makers to deploy, run, price and bill chargers, plus a driver app with roaming across hundreds of thousands of charge points.
Starting capital：US$30M round at a $155M valuation (Sep 2022, Energize Ventures); €80M Series B (Jan 2024, Energize Capital co-led with GreenPoint Partners and Denmark's EIFO), €130M total in three years.
How it started
Founded in Copenhagen in 2020 by Casper Rasmussen after he bought a Tesla and found charging infrastructure fragmented, unreliable and hard to pay for; he left a global CTO role and built a software layer to connect operators, owners and drivers, launching into a market that needed ~3,000 new public chargers a week across Europe.
What happened
Monta grew through 2022's $30M round at $155M, then raised an €80M Series B in January 2024 as AFIR (Regulation (EU) 2023/1804) prepared to force transparent pricing, ad-hoc card/QR payment and third-party data sharing on all new public chargers from April 13, 2024; 2023 ARR grew 600%, offices opened in Paris and Barcelona, and partners such as Siemens, Rolec, Uno-X and EGG joined its roaming network of 600,000+ charge points.
How it ended up
Scaling: the AFIR compliance angle became a product line (dynamic pricing, tap-to-pay terminals, data reporting), and by 2026 the platform lists 700+ industry partners and 1.6M+ chargers on its roaming network.
Background
Monta is a Copenhagen-founded EV charging platform: software for charge point operators, businesses and hardware makers to deploy, run, price and bill chargers, plus a driver app that roams across hundreds of thousands of public charge points. Its bet was that the EU's Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) — from April 13, 2024 requiring transparent pricing, ad-hoc card/QR payment and live data sharing on every new public charger — would make Monta's software the compliance backbone operators buy rather than build.
Founder Casper Rasmussen started the company in 2020 after buying a Tesla and finding Europe's charging infrastructure fragmented, unreliable and hard to pay for. The platform connected hardware vendors, operators and drivers, and by September 2022 TechCrunch covered a $30M round at a $155M valuation led by Energize Ventures. In January 2024 Monta closed an €80M Series B (Energize Capital, GreenPoint Partners and Denmark's EIFO co-leading), bringing total funding to €130M in three years, with 600,000+ charge points on its network and one million monthly charging sessions.
AFIR then validated the bet: Monta published an operator guide positioning its product suite — dynamic pricing, tap-to-pay terminals, QR payments and data reporting to national access points — as the way to reach AFIR compliance fast. The company's 2023 ARR grew 600%, it opened offices in Paris and Barcelona, and partners including Siemens, Rolec, Uno-X and EGG joined its roaming network. As of September 2026 Monta is still scaling, listing over 700 industry partners and more than 1.6 million chargers on its roaming network.
What has to be true
- The regulatory opening is dated and enforceable: AFIR took effect April 13, 2024, mandating ad-hoc payment and data sharing on every new EU public charger.
- Traction is specific: TechCrunch coverage (2022-09-14), €80M Series B announced 2024-01-23, 600,000+ charge points and 1M monthly sessions.
- The wedge is clear: a hardware-agnostic OS sits between fragmented charger vendors and operators, so the compliance layer lands in software that already runs the chargers.
- It shows the regulatory-openings pattern where a legal deadline converts an industry's interoperability problem into recurring platform revenue.
What can be applied
When a regulation standardizes payment and data duties across a fragmented market, the neutral software layer wins: the deadline turns an industry problem into recurring revenue.
Aftermath
As of 2026-09-02 Monta is scaling: it continues to add charge point operators and hardware partners across Europe, and its public API exposes AFIR-compliant roaming charge points, availability and ad-hoc pricing. The company lists over 700 industry partners and more than 1.6 million chargers on its roaming network, and positions AFIR-compliant payments and data reporting as core product features rather than compliance add-ons.
Sources
- EV charging platform Monta to expand into the US
- EV charging platform Monta raises €80 million in Series B
- How AFIR regulations impact charge point operators in 2024
- Regulation (EU) 2023/1804 on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure (AFIR)
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