Paren, an EV data platform startup, raises capital from Base10 Partners

Paren Inc., a software platform powering electric mobility with unified data insights, today announced that it has raised $3M in its first round of financing. The round was led by Base10 Partners. Founders Network Fund and Luc Vincent (founder, Google Street View and Lyft 5) also participated in the round. Paren will use the capital to scale its current data platform and build new services on top of it.

Paren was founded in 2023 with the goal of accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles by enabling a seamless driving experience. The company, after acquiring EVSession, LLC in March 2024 and experiencing accelerated growth, recently completed an additional acquisition of EVAdoption LLC, an EV infrastructure data and analysis firm. Loren McDonald, EVAdoption’s founder and a trusted industry expert joins the executive team as Chief Evangelist.

Paren estimates that 100 million public fast charging sessions will occur in the U.S. in 2024 and expects over 1 billion charging sessions by 2030 at which time a projected 7.5% of vehicles in operation will be battery powered. Access to rich data sets, including EV charging station reliability, is key to realizing this expansion. As a neutral platform, Paren synthesizes fragmented data across the ecosystem into a unified model, addressing the limitations of closed-loop systems, and enabling more powerful applications to be built on top of its dataset. Paren’s reliability analysis has been validated by a recent charger health study (source).

“We are thrilled to have the support of Base10 and our other investors as we address the foundational aspects of the EV charging infrastructure with unified data insights”, said Florent Breton, CEO and Co-Founder of Paren. “With the continued momentum at Paren alongside the acquisition of EVAdoption, we welcome Loren as one of the most well-regarded experts in the industry.”.

“Based on our lengthy EV driving experience, we know that charging on the public network requires seamless access to availability, reliability, pricing, amenities, and safety data,” noted Bill Ferro, CTO and Co-Founder of Paren. “Our solutions are designed to empower automakers, map makers, fleet operators, and other enterprise customers to elevate the driver experience. Combining with EVAdoption’s data will broaden our platform and allow for more robust product offerings.”

This investment will allow Paren to grow its team, expand data sets, and scale its platform to meet the demand of enterprise partners. Notably, Paren is expanding its API access to reliability, plus augmenting its data sets around amenities, pricing, and safety to be seamlessly available to drivers using the national EV infrastructure.

“Paren’s data offers unique insights into the EV charging industry that continue to unlock key business opportunities for us,” said Brandon Stritch, CEO of StritchCo, a Charge Point Operator based in Florida and Paren Customer. “We look forward to benefiting from their expanded data sets and services to help us drive future revenue growth.”

“Charging anxiety is one of the biggest blockers to EV adoption, and much of that is the result of charger reliability. This is a huge problem today that is only getting more acute as EV adoption and production goals uptick,” noted Rexhi Dollaku, General Partner at Base10 Partners. “The team at Paren has deep industry expertise, familiarity with this point, and understanding/collaboration with the key market stakeholders. Paren has created a platform that we believe is uniquely positioned to solve the charger anxiety crisis.”

About Paren
Founded by Florent Breton (CEO) and Bill Ferro (CTO), Paren Inc is based out of San Francisco, Ca. Acting as a neutral platform, Paren aggregates, enriches, and serves the most comprehensive data on the essential aspects of EV charging. Its data is accessible via an online application or API Gateway.

About Base10 Partners
Founded by Adeyemi Ajao and TJ Nahigian, Base10 is a San Francisco-based venture capital fund investing in founders who believe purpose is key to profits and in companies that are automating sectors of the Real Economy.

Austin, TX – September 18, 2024, 9:00am EST – Knit, the platform dedicated to streamlining the consumer research process using AI, today announced the closing of a $9 million funding round and partnerships with brands like T-Mobile, NASCAR, the WNBA, Mars Wrigley, Overtime, and JBL. The round was led by Revolutions’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, with participation from new investors Osage Venture Partners, GFT Ventures, Visible Ventures, and Massive Ventures and existing investors Silicon Road Ventures, Felton Group, and Alumni Ventures. 

Knit enables insights professionals and researchers to conduct agency-quality research  in days, not weeks, marrying quantitative and qualitative data in the same survey for comprehensive, thorough insights. In the past year, Knit has onboarded more than 30 enterprise brands and grown its annual recurring revenue 5X. The team has used the funds to launch its latest offering: Report-Ready Insights, which helps researchers run agency-quality quantitative and qualitative research at DIY costs, by taking the most time-intensive research tasks off their plate through Researcher-Driven AI.

“At Knit, our goal has always been to make researchers’ jobs easier,” says Aneesh Dhawan, Co-Founder and CEO of Knit. “We’re excited about Report-Ready Insights because it does just that – allowing our customers to go from business questions to stakeholder-ready top line reports in days, without compromising speed, cost, or quality. It’s ultimately changing the way research is done.”  

Through Knit, a researcher’s expertise and institutional knowledge are the engine, and Knit’s AI is the navigator, optimizing the research process so it’s faster, more customizable, and more focused on what matters most. 

“The market is filled with ‘off-the-shelf’ AI analysis tools, which often lead to generic outputs, forcing the researcher to spend time, money, and manual efforts converting data to stakeholder reports. What we are doing is different.” says Raahish Kalaria, Co-Founder and CTO of Knit. “Knit is taking a unique approach to AI – one that begins with the human researcher.”

“We’re excited to continue to back Knit as they redefine the landscape of consumer insights,” says David Hall, Managing Partner, Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. “We’ve been impressed by Knit’s rapid adoption among leading brands. Their innovative approach to AI-assisted research clearly resonates, and we’re excited to support their continued momentum as they launch Report-Ready Insights.”

“We’re inspired to see Knit pushing the boundaries of consumer insights with their researcher-driven AI,” says Ross Kimbel, Managing Director and Partner at Silicon Road Ventures. “The team’s ability to quickly partner with top brands and deliver insights is a testament to their deep customer and market understanding. We’re proud to back them as they continue to shape the future of the insights industry with their launch of Report-Ready Insights.”

“Knit is changing the game on how brands gather, assess and act on consumer insights with remarkable speed and precision,” says Sean Dowling, Managing Partner at Osage Venture Partners (OVP), who joined Knit’s Board of Directors upon OVP’s investment. “Their unique AI-driven platform stands out in a crowded market of solutions. Their growth reflects the real value they’re delivering, and we’re excited to be part of their journey as they continue to innovate in this space.”

Knit recently presented alongside Mars Wrigley  at the Corporate Research Conference (CRC) on customer research innovations in New York on September 16-17, 2024. The team will also present with T-Mobile at  The Market Research Event (TMRE) on October 8, 2024.

ABOUT KNIT

Knit is the end-to-end, AI-native platform automating the consumer research process. Founded in 2021, Knit believes AI has the power to democratize rigorous, agency-level research across enterprise organizations – enabling brands to make better and more data-backed decisions for their customers.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 27, 2024 – Echelon, decentralized lending protocol, has secured seed funding to advance DeFi lending on Move-based blockchains. The round was led by Amber Group, with participation from strategic partners including Laser Digital, Saison Capital, Selini Capital, Interop Ventures, and Re7. Echelon aims to offer high-performance markets integrated with other DeFi applications and real-world assets (RWAs).

The protocol’s innovative features include increased borrowing power on correlated assets, isolated pools for long-tail asset markets, direct in-wallet integration for simplified yield strategies, and future support for investing in and borrowing against illiquid RWAs.

Developed using the Move programming language, Echelon Protocol targets institutional-grade markets on Movement, Aptos, and other Move-based blockchains. It focuses on capital efficiency, affordable borrowing rates, and innovative yield opportunities for global users. The protocol has already gained significant traction with users, transactions, and substantial amounts supplied and borrowed.

Rushi Manche, Co-Founder of Movement Labs, also praised Echelon’s approach, stating, “Their focus on capital efficiency and user-friendly design positions them to become a leader in the next generation of DeFi protocols on the Movement Network.”

With this funding, Echelon plans to expand offerings by developing treasury and RWA-backed strategies, implement vaults for cross-chain deposits, and hire full-stack and smart contract engineers while expanding its marketing team.

Echelon’s protocol aims to maximize capital efficiency and provide affordable borrowing rates in the DeFi ecosystem. By leveraging advanced risk management techniques and integrating with various assets, it seeks to unlock new possibilities for yield generation and financial accessibility.

About Echelon:

Echelon is a high efficiency money market that facilitates the borrowing and lending of assets via non-custodial pools, enabling users to earn interest and increase buying power via leverage. Positions are overcollateralized to protect lenders while offering the highest capital efficiency for borrowers. The protocol is complete with isolated pools for long tail assets and one click strategies for leverage staking and RWA backed vaults such as leveraged treasuries.

About Movement Labs: 

Movement Labs is the innovative force behind the Movement Network, an ecosystem of Next-Gen, Modular Move-Based Blockchains that enables developers to build secure, performant, and interoperable blockchain applications, bridging the gap between Move and EVM ecosystems.

About Aptos:

Aptos is a Layer 1 Proof-of-Stake blockchain that employs Move, a Rust-based programming language for writing smart contracts, initially developed in Meta’s Deim project. Aptos’s vision is a blockchain that brings mainstream adoption to web3 and empowers an ecosystem of performant applications.