Wellstreet invests in Pickel AI to solve the EV charging industry's profitability crisis

Stockholm, 12 May 2026: The future of electric vehicles is not decided on the road, it is decided at the charging point. And right now, the majority of Europe's charging operators are losing money. Without profitable infrastructure, the energy transition stalls. Pickel AI was built to change that.

Founded in 2025 in Gothenburg by Hugo Cliffordson, Christoffer Segerdahl, Gabriel Rosengren and Melker Veltman, with backgrounds from Heart Aerospace, Klarna and Implement Consulting Group, Pickel AI has built an AI platform that gives charging operators real-time data on pricing and utilisation for every charger in the market, and automates pricing and power management in response to local market conditions including demand, volatile energy prices and the competitive landscape.

Since launching in January 2026, Pickel has already secured several paying customers, including Recharge, Uno-X and Mer Charging, three of the Nordics' leading charging operators, with more in the pipeline. The 6 MSEK round is led by Wellstreet Ventures II, with participation from Almi Invest and a number of angel investors with backgrounds from Heart Aerospace and Volvo Cars.

Capital will be used to expand the platform into additional European markets, grow the customer base, and hire key technical talent.

"Pickel is positioned exactly at the shift the market is going through right now, from 'build as much as possible' to 'make the infrastructure sustainable.' That is critical not just for charging operators, but for the European energy transition to deliver on its promise," says Jessica Rameau, Partner and Fund Manager at Wellstreet.

"The bottleneck in charging infrastructure is no longer the hardware. It is the data and the operations. Operators lack both the market visibility and the tools to act on it, and that is costing them not just money, but slowing down the entire electrification," says Hugo Cliffordson, Co-founder and CEO of Pickel AI.