UK-based EV charging technology company Petalite has filed for administration, with business advisory firm FRP appointed as joint administrators.
The Birmingham-headquartered firm said it was ultimately unable to secure investor funding in time, after losing an ‘anchor investor’ due to a change in strategy. Petalite announced the news on LinkedIn.
“Incredible progress was being made and we were on the cusp of delivering a pilot with a market leading solution,” the company wrote.
“Ultimately, difficulty with funding was the downfall. We lost our anchor investor due to a change in their strategy and were unable to find new sources of funds in time to save the company. This is heart breaking for everyone involved.”
Petalite positioned its technology as a way to simplify and scale high-power charging infrastructure, and focused heavily on boosting reliability in the EV charging industry. It noted that its patented ‘sinusoidal direct current’ technology “radically simplifies the AC-DC conversion process at the heart of DC fast chargers.”
Simon Baggs, Director at administrators FRP, noted, “Petalite developed compelling proprietary technology with the potential to disrupt the EV charging market. Like many early-stage businesses, it faced significant fundraising challenges in a difficult investment climate.
“Despite that, there is still significant value in the company and its IP and we’re optimistic that, under the right new ownership, a route forward can be found for Petalite’s EV charging solutions.”
While Petalite has not named the investor it describes as its anchor backer, the company’s statement points to a familiar challenge for early-stage firms operating in capital-intensive markets: technology development can move quickly, but commercial rollouts and manufacturing scale typically require sustained funding over multiple rounds.
The administration also raises questions over what happens next for Petalite’s technology and intellectual property. In some cases, administrators may seek a buyer for assets such as patents, designs, and software, particularly where a product has reached late-stage development. Whether Petalite can be sold as a going concern is not yet clear, and the company has not published details of any sale process.
Petalite’s collapse also lands at an awkward moment for the wider EV charging market in the UK, where the long-term trajectory remains positive but the near-term economics can be unforgiving.
The company isn’t the first in the market to fall on hard terms, with Muller EV, the previous owner of Andersen EV, falling into administration in 2022 before being acquired by EVIOS. Pod Point is another example of the difficult economics of the industry, with EDF snapping up the company earlier this year for just £10 million, despite it previously being valued at £352 million.
With so many EV charger manufacturers clamouring for attention, some industry insiders have questioned whether the market can sustain them. After all, hardware innovation is expensive to develop, and for newer entrants, that can mean a heavy reliance on grant funding, strategic partners, or venture capital willing to wait out long deployment cycles – and when any one of those pillars moves, the runway can disappear quickly.
