The more the merrier seems to be the case for EV charging software startup WeaveGrid, which this week announced backing from two major auto companies––sister brands Hyundai Motor and Kia––after recently unveiling an investment from Toyota.

“With Toyota, Hyundai Motor, and Kia investing in our platform, we’re seeing a clear industry convergence,” WeaveGrid CEO Apoorv Bhargava said in a statement.

“These investments validate our approach to creating a cybersecure, seamless solution that enables automakers to transform their EVs into grid-interactive vehicles,” he added. “With our solutions already deployed in dozens of the largest utilities in the country, we’re establishing the foundation for how hundreds of millions of EVs and the grid will work together.”

Grid gains

WeaveGrid provides software solutions to utility providers to help integrate electric vehicles with the power grid.

“We’re really creating this awesome software interface between the electric vehicles that are hitting the grid and the electric utilities that operate that grid,” Yakov Berenshteyn, WeaveGrid’s senior director of automotive and charging partnerships, told Tech Brew at CES 2025, “making sure that EV adoption can be scalable on the infrastructure that we have today and that we’re developing into the future in terms of charging.”

EVs are becoming more closely entwined with the grid, thanks to emerging capabilities like vehicle-to-grid technologies, which allow EVs not only to pull power from the grid but send it back when demand is high. The idea behind such technologies is to make EV charging easier and potentially financially beneficial for users, and to turn EVs into assets that support electric grids that are facing growing demand not only from the transportation sector but also from new data centers.

“For the electric utilities, they have very little visibility into how EV loads are going to impact their grids, and they have very little visibility into where EV adoption’s happening,” Berenshteyn explained.

WeaveGrid says it “supports utilities serving more than 40%” of EVs in the country.

Drawing dollars

WeaveGrid raised $35 million in a Series B round in 2022. In December, it announced that Toyota’s investment arm, Woven Capital, was part of a $28 million funding round that included existing investors. The investment from Hyundai and Kia is part of that funding round, according to WeaveGrid.

Toyota, the world’s best-selling automaker, in December detailed its investment in WeaveGrid, saying in a news release that the move would help its battery-electric and plug-in hybrid models “smoothly integrate with the electric grid, helping facilitate an efficient, equitable and resilient energy transition.”

Tech Brew previously reported on a partnership among other major automakers including BMW, Ford, Honda, and Nissan on a venture called ChargeScape that aims to make at-home charging easier by helping EVs integrate with the grid.

These investments to support more seamless EV charging come as automakers look to make EV adoption an easier proposition for their customers amid choppy demand.