BP makes £4m investment in fleet software company Dynamon

BP Ventures has invested £4 million in Dynamon, a UK-based software company that specialises in developing advanced data analytics and simulation tools for commercial transport and logistics companies.

The funding forms part of Dynamon’s Series A round, being raised to fully commercialise and scale up its platform and expand its operations in Europe and into North America.

Dynamon and BP have also signed a commercial agreement which will give BP Pulse customers access to a range of fleet optimisation tools, including its flagship Zero product.

Zero uses advanced predictive analytics providing fleets with specific electric vehicle (EV) insights helping customers to decarbonise their fleets cost-effectively, including calculating the best options for vehicle adoption, charging infrastructure, energy costs, and operations analysis.

In a Dynamon 4,000-vehicle last-mile trial, a customer using Zero software identified a potential £22m annual energy cost saving (£0.28/mile diesel vs £0.125/mile electric), and 8,700 tonnes annual CO2 saving (609.86 g CO2e/litre diesel) after the tool analysed the best solution for fleet electrification.

Gareth Burns, vice president of BP Ventures, said: “We’re very excited to be investing in Dynamon, an EV fleet software business deploying software as a service and data science to help the commercial transport industry transition to lower carbon energy fleets.”

Currently, global logistics and transport companies are facing a challenging transition to decarbonise and optimise fleet operations, which place pressures on procurement departments tasked with cost-effectively electrifying large-scale fleets.

Recent BP industry research shows that nearly half of UK fleet managers (43%) and fleet drivers (41%) think they’ll begin introducing EVs to their fleets within the next two years.

Angus Webb, CEO and founder of Dynamon, said: “It is our mission to bring the most advanced fleet optimisation tools to the transport industry.

“This is becoming increasingly critical with the transition to electric vehicles requiring both fleets and suppliers to perform complex analysis to ensure that solutions will be robust and cost effective.

“We are delighted to be partnering with BP to deliver our software tools to fleets. With a strong heritage in engineering and technology and servicing fleets globally, BP is a perfect partner for Dynamon’s growth.”

Olympic medal-winning athletes

Webb (pictured above), whose background is in engineering, worked with Team GB prior to London 2012, using data analytics and simulation tools to help athletes and coaches make better decisions with the University of Southampton.

They were able to analyse lots of different scenarios involving different equipment choices and understand what was the optimum solution.

Webb explained: “What we developed was something which gave them the ability to make much better choices, and then go on and win more medals.”

Following this successful approach with medal-winning athletes, Webb said: “I wanted to take that approach, which I felt was a very powerful technological approach, and apply it to a much bigger problem, which would have a much bigger impact and the commercial transport industry was the obvious example for me.”

Dynamon was created and today its software and analysis tools are deployed in many countries, and help businesses understand actions they can take to help decarbonise their fleets cost-effectively, improving research and trial time.

“The transition to electric vehicles places quite a bit of risk on commercial transport companies,” said Webb. “You have to run profitable operations; they're currently doing that with diesel today, they need to do it with EV tomorrow.

“Navigating that transition and making smart decisions is really important in order to choose a solution that is both feasible and cost effective. The mission we're on is to provide the tools to enable them to do that.”

Webb continued: “Zero solves the vehicle choice problem, it solves the infrastructure choice problem, it helps understand both charging infrastructure and grid infrastructure, and energy as well on top of that.

“It really solves the whole picture of transitioning to electric vehicles and enables the very complicated analysis that has to be done in a very easy manner.”

Dynamon’s tools can also be utilised by existing EV fleets to get the most out of their operations, address cost management, support operational reliability, and gain a deeper understanding of battery degradation through data analytics.

Stefan von Dobschüetz, general manager for BP Pulse Europe, said: “As fleets electrify, the commercial transport and logistics industry faces challenges balancing cost management, operational reliability, while understanding new vehicle technology.

“Dynamon’s simulation and data analytics tools offer those companies unique fleet-specific insights to help identify the optimum EVs and charging infrastructure to replace existing combustion engine vehicles.

“This agreement between BP and Dynamon makes the tools available to our BP Pulse customers and provides a range of options and solutions to effectively manage and enhance their EV fleet.”

BP Ventures was set up more than 10 years ago as BP’s corporate venture capital arm. Since then, it has invested more than $1 billion in technology companies and is actively managing 40 investments today.