Electric vehicle charging company gears up for growth with Finance Yorkshire investment

George Ohara, WPYC; Ian Brown, Finance Yorkshire; Kai Arter, Chief Executive of WPYC and Alex McWhirter, Chief Executive of Finance Yorkshire

West Yorkshire based We Power Your Car (WPYC) is expanding with £750,000 from Finance Yorkshire’s growth fund.

The company is using the investment to scale its operations and attract more domestic and commercial customers across the UK.

WPYC employs more than 50 people including 25 engineers who install the electric vehicle charging points at customers’ premises. The company also has several strategic partners, carrying out installations for their customers.

WPYC has ambitions to become one of the country’s leading national home installation providers having grown sales to £2.66 million last year.

Government legislation requires that 22% of all new vehicle registrations must be electric by 2024, increasing year on year until 2030.

Chief executive Kai Arter said: “We saw the potential to grow the business and vital to that was having our own team of engineers rather than sub-contracting work to installers.

“This enables us to be very focussed on the customer journey and we have scaled up our internal team based in Bingley to provide the highest standards of customer service and support the installers in the field.”

Kai has a longstanding relationship with Finance Yorkshire having received previous investment for his successful cosmetics business Badgequo. “It was an easy decision to return to partnering with Finance Yorkshire having enjoyed a previous strong and successful working relationship,” said Kai.

Finance Yorkshire chief executive Alex McWhirter said: “Kai is a seasoned businessman who has seen the potential in the electric vehicle charging market to grow WPYC. Our investment is supporting the company’s growth as it seeks to scale up its operations and sales and create new jobs in Yorkshire.”

Finance Yorkshire’s growth fund is part of a wider regional business fund which is expected to provide more than £50m to SMEs over five years. Investment is also available from its seedcorn and business loans funds.

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