On January 27, 2022, ABB announced it had acquired a controlling interest—approximately 60%—of InCharge Energy, significantly expanding its initial 10% Series A investment from 2020. I was about to start my new job with InCharge and was worried about having made the move to InCharge ahead of this announcement.
ABB had been an early investor in InCharge through its Series A round in 2020, which positioned it to understand the business deeply before making this larger commitment. The controlling interest structure gave ABB strategic influence over a growing charging infrastructure company while allowing the founding team to maintain operational control and significant ownership.
The Strategic Investor Choice
This deal reveals a specific product strategy choice: taking capital from a strategic partner rather than traditional venture capital.
The ABB relationship gave InCharge access to more than just money. ABB brought established OEM relationships, global distribution networks, and technical expertise in power electronics, and better access to electrical infrastructure. The parent company's E-mobility division had existing customer relationships with fleet operators and commercial truck manufacturers that would take years for a startup to develop independently.
The trade-off was meaningful: giving up majority ownership and taking on a large corporate investor with its own strategic priorities. Traditional VC firms might have offered more favorable terms or allowed founders to retain control longer. On the whole, I saw the advantages of the partnership and opportunities to scale as meaningful and stuck with the offer acceptance.
This choice reflects a fundamental question in infrastructure businesses: when does strategic value outweigh financial terms? InCharge chose market access and technical resources over cap table optimization. For a company selling complex charging systems to large fleets and potentially selling into ABB's existing customer base and leveraging their sales and service teams, this made practical sense. The capital enabled expansion into Canada and larger project execution, but the real leverage came from ABB's existing presence in those markets and project types.
By early 2022, the charging infrastructure market was heating up with significant VC investment and new entrants. Taking ABB's capital effectively picked a lane: becoming the charging infrastructure arm of a global power electronics leader rather than pursuing the independent unicorn path.