Charging your electric car in Europe should be easy, right? Plug in, pay, drive away. But nope. Instead, it often feels like a confusing game. You need different apps, cards, or QR codes. And the price? Well, that depends on how you pay. Some stations even have 50 different prices. Yes, 50.
Issam Tidjani, one of the founders of Cariqa, saw the problem firsthand. “We went to charge our car and got different prices depending on how we paid,” he said. “That’s when we knew something was wrong.”
So, what did they do? They built Cariqa, a new platform that makes EV charging simple. It gives charge point operators (CPOs) control over pricing and payments, while drivers see just one clear price, no matter how they pay. No more surprises. No more scanning three apps just to get 5% off.
Investors love the idea too. Cariqa just raised €4 million in seed funding, led by Contrarian Ventures and Anthemis. That money will help them grow across Europe.
The team behind Cariqa knows what they’re doing. Issam, Tamara Ciullo, and Stefano Bonetta met while working at HERE Technologies, a company focused on transport and maps. They’ve worked in mobility tech for years, and now they want to clean up the chaos in EV charging.
Their big goal? Make EV charging as fair and easy as buying petrol. “Imagine if milk cost more just because you used a credit card,” Tidjani joked. “That’s what EV charging is like today. We want to fix that.”
Cariqa’s technology lets CPOs set one price across all payment methods, credit card, app, QR code, you name it. Drivers get a fair, simple experience. CPOs get tools to manage pricing, payments, and even taxes. Everyone wins.
And here’s something cool: Cariqa doesn’t sell energy. Unlike other companies, they don’t buy electricity and sell it to drivers at a higher price. Instead, they just give CPOs the tools to sell directly. That means no extra markups for drivers.
The platform also has smart tools powered by AI. It helps set prices and keep everything in sync, so there’s no confusion, and no nasty surprises at the charger.
But Cariqa isn’t only focused on tech. They’re also working to build a diverse and inclusive team. Ciullo, one of the few female founders in mobility, says, “We want to avoid the same old pattern of male-dominated tech. Diversity brings better ideas.”
So, what’s next? Cariqa wants to grow their team and expand beyond Germany and Austria. “In the next few years, we want to be the go-to platform for EV charging payments,” Tidjani said. “When someone asks, ‘How do I get paid by EV drivers?’ we want the answer to be Cariqa.”
In short, Cariqa is here to make EV charging less confusing and more fair, for drivers, operators, and maybe even the planet. And if that means the end of weird QR codes and mystery prices, count us in.
