INVENT 2023 Finalist Profile: GoPlugable
Co-founder name: Maebh Reynolds
What is your background?
Recent Queen's University Belfast graduate of a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. I have a speciality interest in product design and green mobility.
What inspired you to start your business?
I have always been passionate about sustainability and simple, effective ways of how our society can reach carbon neutrality. I believe that Electric Vehicle adoption is one of the key ways we can meet this ambitious goal. GoPlugable was born out of the observation that the EV market needs more accessible convenient and affordable options for charging.
What problem are you solving?
Northern Ireland is banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars in the year 2030. From our recent survey campaign, it was revealed that 37% of current EV drivers or those who are considering to make the switch to an EV in the next two years do not have access to a home charger. This may be because they do not have access to a private driveway, live in an apartment or in a rented home. By leveraging existing EV home chargers in our communities, we can strengthen the EV charging network through GoPlugable by providing the option to schedule a charging session with a neighbour at the time and place that suits you best. This also gives home charger owners a form of passive revenue!
Who and where are your potential customers?
Our current customers are the 800,000+ EV drivers in the UK and Ireland. This is a growing market with many expected to switch within the next decade, so we have developed our easy community based marketplace to accommodate everyone to make this switch. We are specifically focusing on those who do not have home charging access.
What do you think is the potential for your business?
We are on a mission to host the UK and Ireland's largest charging app. We want to be a "One Stop Shop" for all charging needs by displaying public chargers on our platform. We also want to encourage urban business owners to install EV charging and give them the opportunity to optimise their revenue by managing this essential infrastructure on GoPlugable.
Where do you hope to be 5 years from now?
We hope to have built a strong customer base within the UK and Ireland and have scaled into Europe with 3 million+ downloads within the next 5 years to become one of the largest EV charging apps.
Check out GoPlugable’s website at goplugable.com. Follow GoPlugable on LinkedIn.
Tickets for the INVENT Awards Night 2023 are on sale at invent23.co/awards – Thursday 21st September at the ICC Belfast.