Depotcharge raises €2.7M Pre-Seed to share EV charging capacity across logistics depots

Depotcharge (Munich) has raised €2.7 million in a Pre-Seed round led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), with participation from xdeck Ventures, Kopa Ventures, Prequel Ventures, and sector angels from logistics, e-mobility, and energy. Simultaneously with the raise, the company announced a partnership with BGL e.V. — Germany's road freight association, representing thousands of carriers — to launch BGL Charge, a shared depot charging network for German road freight.

Founded by Joscha Specks (CEO), the company builds a platform that connects depot owners who have installed EV charging infrastructure but carry unused capacity to logistics operators who need to charge their fleets — particularly on cross-border or regional routes where their own depot charging is not accessible.

The structural problem

Fleet electrification in European road freight has created an asymmetric infrastructure landscape. Individual logistics companies have installed charging at their own depots — driven by fleet procurement decisions, regulatory requirements, and green logistics contracts — but those installations are sized for their own fleet cycles and sit underutilised during off-hours. Meanwhile, neighbouring operators, regional carriers, and cross-border fleets cannot reliably charge when away from their home base.

The hardware-first answer — install more charging everywhere — is capital-intensive, slow, and produces redundant infrastructure. Depotcharge's argument is that the charging capacity already exists in the network; it just needs a marketplace layer to allocate it. A depot owner lists available charging slots and pricing; a logistics operator books in advance through Depotcharge's platform, integrating with their transport management system via API or reservation interface.

Joscha Specks: "Logistics companies share their charging infrastructure with one another and unlock economic value across the sector."

The model is deliberately hardware- and manufacturer-agnostic: Depotcharge does not own chargers, does not manufacture them, and does not tie to any vehicle OEM. The platform works with existing installations regardless of brand.

BGL Charge as distribution

The BGL partnership — launching BGL Charge as a named, branded charging network for association members — is the key early move. Germany's road freight sector is fragmented: thousands of mid-size and regional carriers, most without the procurement teams to evaluate infrastructure vendors directly. BGL e.V. acts as a trusted aggregator; a product adopted through the association benefits from member credibility and access to a national carrier network without direct sales to each member individually.

HTGF's entry at pre-seed stage is consistent with its pattern in logistics and climate infrastructure: the fund has historically backed platform companies that create marketplace-layer efficiency on top of underutilised physical infrastructure. xdeck Ventures (Munich) adds mobility-sector network; Kopa Ventures brings early-stage deep tech distribution experience.

The €2.7 million is a lean pre-seed for a platform business with a clear marketplace structure. The near-term test is BGL Charge utilisation rates and whether the revenue-sharing model between Depotcharge, BGL, and depot owners produces economics worth expanding. The international ambition — DACH, then Benelux — follows a logical progression: the same fragmented-carrier problem exists across the German-speaking market and the Netherlands/Belgium corridor before any truly cross-border complexity emerges.