The most expensive part of a public EV charger is often the wire you never see. Upgrading a city's electrical grid to support a new curbside station can cost tens of thousands of dollars and take years of permits, a math problem that has left many urban neighborhoods, especially in older cities, as charging deserts. A Brooklyn startup called it's electric is betting it can solve that by using the wires that are already there.
Founded in 2021 by Nathan King and Tiya Gordon, the company installs sleek, compact Level 2 chargers on city curbs. The twist is that each unit is powered by the spare electrical capacity of the adjacent building, tapping into a connection behind the meter. The property owner pays nothing for the installation or maintenance and gets a cut of the revenue, reported at $700 to $3,400 per charger per year [Plugin America, recent]. For drivers, it's a standard 240-volt charge, accessible 24/7 via an app or credit card for about $10 a session [it's electric website, undated]. The company claims about 1,400 of these chargers are already operating in New York City [Sustainability Magazine, recent].
The building owner as a grid asset
The core bet is a shift in perspective. Instead of viewing the utility as the sole provider of public charging infrastructure, it's electric treats every suitable building as a potential grid asset. The model requires no new transformers or substation upgrades, theoretically allowing deployment at the speed of sidewalk permits rather than electrical engineering. This behind-the-meter approach also lets the host building benefit directly from the asset on its curb, a financial incentive that has been largely absent from public charging rollouts. Co-founder Tiya Gordon has framed it as turning underutilized building capacity into passive income [Sustainability Magazine, recent]. For a city administration, the appeal is a faster, cheaper path to densifying its charging network without capital expenditure.
Funding an urban expansion
After a pre-seed round of $2.2 million led by Brooklyn Bridge Ventures [it's electric website, undated], the company closed a $6.5 million seed round in July 2024, with participation from Uber Technologies and Failup Ventures [PRNewswire, 2024-07-16]. The new capital is earmarked for a significant geographic push beyond its New York home turf. The company has announced plans to expand to seven additional U.S. cities, including Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. [PRNewswire, 2024-07-16]. The backing from Uber is a notable signal, suggesting a strategic alignment with a platform that has a direct interest in the reliability and ubiquity of urban EV infrastructure.
| City | Status |
|---|---|
| New York City | ~1,400 chargers deployed [Sustainability Magazine, recent] |
| Boston | Expansion planned [PRNewswire, 2024-07-16] |
| Los Angeles | Expansion planned [PRNewswire, 2024-07-16] |
| San Francisco | Expansion planned [PRNewswire, 2024-07-16] |
| Washington, D.C. | Expansion planned [PRNewswire, 2024-07-16] |
| Detroit, Alameda, Yonkers | Expansion planned [PRNewswire, 2024-07-16] |
The unit economics of a sidewalk
The model's viability hinges on a simple back-of-the-envelope calculation. If a charger is used for just two hours a day at the reported $10 session rate, that's $7,300 in annual revenue. A typical revenue share for the host building might be around 10-15%, landing in the company's cited $700-$3,400 range [Plugin America, recent]. The rest must cover it's electric's hardware, installation, maintenance, payment processing, and software costs, with a margin left over. The capital efficiency comes from avoiding the five- or six-figure grid upgrade. The real test will be achieving utilization rates high enough to make each curbside spot a profitable node before the hardware needs replacing.
Where the model could short-circuit
No urban infrastructure play is without friction. The company's expansion will test several assumptions outside the unique environment of New York.
- Host recruitment. Convincing a critical mass of property owners in each new city to host a piece of public infrastructure on their curb for a relatively modest annual check is a bespoke sales and education challenge.
- Utilization variance. A charger in a dense residential neighborhood may see steady overnight use, while one in a commercial district could sit idle on weekends. The company's unit economics must work across both scenarios.
- Regulatory patchwork. Every city has its own rules for sidewalks, right-of-way, and electrical codes. Scaling to seven new municipalities means navigating seven different bureaucratic mazes.
- Competitive response. The incumbent it's electric must beat is the traditional utility-led model, often slower and more expensive but backed by deep balance sheets and regulatory relationships. If utilities begin to streamline their own curbside programs, the startup's speed advantage could narrow.
The company has gathered some early validation, winning the 2024 Keeling Curve Prize and recognition from City & State as a Trailblazer in Clean Energy [Eugene Tsar LinkedIn, 2024]. But prizes don't charge cars. The next twelve months will be about proving the unit economics in cities that don't look like Brooklyn, one curbside agreement at a time.
Sources
- [it's electric website, undated] Curbside EV Charging Built for Cities | https://itselectric.us/
- [Sustainability Magazine, recent] Itselectric: The Company Changing Cities' EV Charging Model | https://sustainabilitymag.com/articles/itselectric-transforms-urban-ev-charging-in-new-york
- [Plugin America, recent] it's electric, a New York-based company, is partnering with property owners... | https://pluginamerica.org/its-electric-a-new-york-based-company-is-partnering-with-property-owners-and-installing-public-curbside-charging-with-a-twist/
- [PRNewswire, 2024-07-16] it's electric Raises $6.5M Seed Round | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/its-electric-raises-6-5m-seed-round-302197130.html
- [Eugene Tsar LinkedIn, 2024] Post on Keeling Curve Prize and Trailblazer award | https://www.linkedin.com/in/eugene-tsar-aa3a27246/