Scoop: Connected Kerb founders cash out as public money flows in
+ Post-paywall: Business Secretary leaves door open to a ZEV mandate review
Hello, I’m Tom Riley, and welcome back to The Fast Charge, a British EV newsletter.
My top story today… Founders at the taxpayer-backed charging network Connected Kerb are looking to cash in up to £1m from an equity sale.
After the paywall… A future review of the ZEV mandate, Octopus launches a V2G offer, and a new survey by Motability Ops reveals that charging is a big concern.
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Connected Kerb founders in £1m share sale after public investment
Headline… Only four months after receiving £55m of taxpayer investment from the National Wealth Fund, the founders of the EV charging network, Connected Kerb, have this week launched an exercise to sell £1 million worth of equity shares through a ‘secondaries’ sale on the ‘Republic’ platform (formerly Seedrs).
Context: Readers may recall that the investment into Connected Kerb by the National Wealth Fund (NWF), which is owned wholly by HM Treasury, was announced in February by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves. It was the first high-profile investment from Labour’s flagship investment fund and, as well as getting £55m from taxpayers, Connected Kerb also raised a further £10m from their existing investor, Aviva. At the time of the announcement, the NWF stated the money would “support the UK-based charge point operator’s ambitious plans to grow its charging network towards 40,000 sockets, up from the 9,000 already built at the end of 2024.”
Why does it matter? The founder’s equity sale raises questions about whether the government’s investment has enabled a private exit. This is something many investors would consider unusual so soon after a funding round, let alone one that relied so heavily on taxpayer investment.
To this point… The investment from Aviva and NWF is listed as the top business highlight on the company’s share sale page. The listed valuation of the company from that investment is registered as being £196m. The sale in question is a ‘secondaries sale’. In short, Connected Kerb’s founders are trading their equity shares in exchange for cash. According to the page, so far only £5,000 worth of shares have been bought up on Republic after two days.
To me… It’s also unclear what oversight mechanisms exist to limit who can acquire shares in a now taxpayer-backed firm. Can anyone go to this page and buy up the shares? It seems like a potential governance issue. Generally, the seeming lack of formal oversight around this sale raises questions about how the NWF is handling its investments in publicly backed firms.
Government statement? When I asked both HM Treasury and the NWF whether they approved the founder equity sale, given their investment was only recent, neither provided a comment in response. Instead, HM Treasury pointed out that the NWF is operationally independent. And the NWF only confirmed it was made aware of the transaction happening.
In response to a query from The Fast Charge, Connected Kerb’s CEO, Chris Pateman-Jones, provided me with the following statement:
“On Tuesday 24 June 2025 , a secondary sale of shares in Connected Kerb by its founders is taking place on the Seedrs platform. This sale forms part of a funding agreement established earlier this year with the National Wealth Fund and Aviva Investors PLC.
“The fundraise saw NWF commit a £55m ordinary equity investment alongside a further £10m ordinary equity investment from Aviva Investors, the global asset management business of Aviva plc.
“The present sale represents a minor part of the founders existing holding and no member of the current executive team of Connected Kerb is participating in this sale.
“The transaction is supervised by Republic Europe, The European arm of US based financial technology and private investment specialist Republic and takes place on its UK platform Seedrs. The National Wealth Fund and Aviva Investors PLC have been informed of the transaction and are aware of the details.”
But… there’s more to this story…
On the sales page… Connected Kerb has also highlighted on Republic that it has the ‘Largest ever local authority rollouts of EVCPs contracted in 2023’. Now, as I understand it, the contracts referred to here may be in contention.
👉 Two industry sources have told me they believe the contracts in question should have been re-tendered under Local EV Infrastructure funding rules, as they’d been previously won by Connected Kerb under the now ceased On-Street Charge Point Scheme that came with different requirements for networks bidding. I have seen correspondence from a Department for Transport official that suggests they are aware of concerns, and that the department has been warned by industry that they may face a legal challenge by allowing this.
📝 I have separately been told that complaints were made to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), especially due to the announcement of Connected Kerb’s investment by the Chancellor during live LEVI procurement exercises. When asked about this in April by The Fast Charge, the CMA told me they were unable to provide details on any complaints made to them.
In response to a query about this… Connected Kerb’s CEO, Chris Pateman-Jones, initially strongly rejected this part of my story on the record, suggesting he’d spoken to officials. He told The Fast Charge:
“This story has no basis in reality. Yesterday I spoke to the DfT/OZEV and they confirmed that they are not presently in contact with the CMA on ORCS or LEVI as described in your email below. They are also not aware of any current legal challenge on any particular 2023 ORCS award (neither ours or others). I would speculate that this is more wishful thinking on behalf of our competition than reality.”
Later in the day… That is, 10 hours later at 11pm on Tuesday 24 June, Chris asked for this comment to be retracted.
Ultimately… I have chosen not to do this, as it was a statement made on the record, and I informed Connected Kerb I’d be taking this approach this morning.
However… that’s not the only reason I’m publishing, but because it also opens up questions for me about the activity of officials on this matter. As I understand it, any CMA activity is very confidential - they didn’t answer me when I asked their press office in April, for example. Furthermore, if DfT/OZEV has told Connected Kerb these complaints are wrong, how come I’ve seen a letter by one of its officials suggesting the opposite? And why haven’t the DfT been in touch with me if they feel I’m so off the mark?
Right… That’s all on this for now. I hope you found this story of interest and will consider supporting my publication. Because this is the kind of story The Fast Charge exists to cover.
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