Go Eve lands £750K grant to upgrade its DockChain fleet charging tech

What's the deal? Go EveDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a spin-out from University College Dublin and Imperial College London, has won a £750,000 grant from Innovate UK to develop the next version of its DockChain technology. The patented system lets one DC fast charger serve multiple parking bays, charging vehicles one at a time while they stay plugged in.

What's the endgame? The 18-month project will build updated hardware, firmware, and software to make charging sessions more reliable. The upgrade will let DockChain start, stop, and restart charging without drivers unplugging and reconnecting — and existing units will be upgradeable.

Why now? The work is based on real problems at fleet sites, where some EVs fail to charge on the first attempt or stall after a pause. Go Eve also plans to explore vehicle-to-grid capability, which could let fleet operators earn revenue by sending stored battery power back to the grid.

The grant builds on Go Eve's £3 million seed round in 2023 and follows pilots and European certification. It is funded through Innovate UK's Growth Catalyst Investor Partnerships programme alongside private investment.

What could go wrong? The award is a targeted technology grant, not a major financing milestone — its size sits in the lower third of comparable rounds. On its own, the announcement does not establish commercial scale.

The signal: The project reflects a UK market shifting from getting fleet charging to market toward making it practical and cheaper. "The ability to make better use of existing chargers, parking bays and available grid capacity will be increasingly important in managing this transition," said John Goodbody, co-founder and marketing director at Go Eve, citing projections that EVs will reach 30–50% of UK commercial fleets by 2030.

Read more: startuprise.co.uk

Image credit: Go Eve