Max Scherer, Monta COO: Building the Software Layer for EV Charging
Monta is a Copenhagen-based software platform that lets businesses, utilities and cities run thousands of EV charge points from different manufacturers in one system. In this Startuprad.io interview, COO Max Scherer explains why charging hardware is becoming a low-margin commodity, how Monta earns a monthly fee per connected charge point, and why it expanded to the US.
What Is This About?
In this episode, Jörn "Joe" Menninger talks to Max Scherer, Chief Operating Officer of Monta. Monta builds the software that sits on top of EV charge points: a management platform for charging operators and businesses, and an app for drivers. At the time of recording, in early 2024, Monta had just announced an €80 million Series B, bringing its total funding to €130 million in three years.
Max grew up in Berlin and moved to Copenhagen with his family during the pandemic. He explains how Monta got started, why it bet on software instead of hardware, how it grew revenue six- to sevenfold in 2023, and what came next: a first US office, vehicle-to-grid services and full salary transparency at 250 employees. Monta is headquartered in Denmark but runs an office in Berlin and sells to German charging operators, which is why it belongs in our coverage of the companies shaping power structures in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. This is the refreshed version of the interview first published on our Medium archive on 4 April 2024.
The video went live on Thursday, April 4th, 2024
The Audio Podcast
The audio podcast went live the same day.
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Update, September 2026
Since this interview, Monta opened its US headquarters in Miami (October 2024). On 24 September 2026 it announced that MVV Energie is migrating about 6,600 charge points to its platform; Max Scherer is quoted in that announcement.
Summary
Monta turns thousands of different charge points into one manageable network. Max Scherer argues that charging hardware is a fragmented components business heading for low prices and thin margins, so Monta chose to be the hardware-agnostic software layer and charges business customers a monthly fee per connected charge point. In 2023, its third year, Monta grew six- to sevenfold and raised €80 million while much of the startup market was struggling. The next steps Max described were a US office on the East Coast, demand-response services for grid operators and continued radical transparency on pay, equity and company finances.
Key Takeaways
Hardware is a components business. Thousands of charger models from many vendors push prices and margins down, according to Max.
Monta is hardware-agnostic. One system runs charge points of different models, locations and use cases: home, supermarket parking and highway fast chargers.
The model is SaaS. Business customers pay a monthly fee per connected charge point; drivers use the Monta app to charge anywhere.
Growth in a down market. Revenue grew six- to sevenfold in 2023; Max credits product-market fit and a market he put at over 35 percent annual growth.
Radical transparency. Every employee can see salaries, equity and the company's bank balance; Monta had about 250 people at the time.
The Guest: Max Scherer
Max Scherer is Chief Operating Officer of Monta. Born and raised in Berlin, he studied geography at Freie Universität Berlin and spent a year at Dartmouth College as a Fulbright scholar. He then founded several companies in Berlin, including a farm-to-table food delivery business started with Rocket Internet and later sold to a French competitor, and worked at Boston Consulting Group. In 2020 he moved to Copenhagen for his wife's job, started looking for something new there and found Monta.
"I think the thing that always pulled through for me was that I was super fascinated by what technology can do." — Max Scherer, COO of Monta
How Monta Started
Monta's CEO and co-founder, Casper Rasmussen, bought a Tesla around 2017 and lived in central Copenhagen, where street charging was rare. When a new operator launched near his home around 2020 and promised an app that would make charging easy, he found it poor. Casper was a software engineer running an app agency, so he offered to help. The operator declined, and that is how Monta got started. The Monta app went live in February 2021.
Why Charging Hardware Gets Cheap
A charge point is a simple device: a casing, a fuse box, a controller and a plug. Almost any electronics manufacturer can build one, and in Europe there are thousands of models.
"It's a very fragmented market. They all do the job somehow, some better than others. But in the end, you will be able to charge your car on all of them." — Max Scherer, COO of Monta
Max expects that market to be driven to low prices and small margins, with innovation mostly in process and supply-chain cost. Monta's answer was to stay out of hardware and make charging hardware-agnostic.
The Business Model: A Fee per Connected Charge Point
Because charging infrastructure is fragmented across thousands of models and spread across many locations, Max argues that accessibility, reliability and safety are best delivered by one software platform that runs on all of them. Monta lets a company, operator or city run tens of thousands of charge points of different models, in different countries and for different use cases, in one system. On the other side, the Monta app lets drivers charge anywhere. All charge points are connected devices, which makes Monta an IoT software company. Business customers pay a monthly fee per connected charge point.
"Achieving those things, accessibility, reliability, safety, is something that you can probably best do with a software platform that runs on all of these." — Max Scherer, COO of Monta
Raising €80 Million in a Down Market
The Series B was led by Energize Capital and GreenPoint Partners together with Denmark's Export and Investment Fund, with Quantum Light joining and Headline, byFounders, AENU and Creandum returning. Max gives three reasons it worked in 2023: strong performance, with revenue up six- to sevenfold in Monta's third year; a market growing against the macro trend, driven by energy uncertainty, sustainability and enthusiasm for electric driving; and investors who back likely category winners during a downturn.
"The market globally, I think the compound annual growth rate is over 35%, which is incredibly high." — Max Scherer, COO of Monta
What Came Next: The US and Vehicle-to-Grid
At the time Monta had around six offices in Europe. The biggest next step was the US: the first office would be on the East Coast, for maximum time-zone overlap with Europe, with a possible second office on the West Coast later. Max sees a lot of technology transfer from markets like Denmark, Sweden and Norway, which are further along in electrification than any US state.
The second step is energy. Full vehicle-to-grid, where car batteries feed power back into the grid, needs heavy grid investment. But Monta was already doing a simpler version at small scale: pooling charging demand so grid operators can pause it for seconds to avoid a brownout. Max also named electrified long-haul trucking, with charging schedules and route planning, as a field Monta wanted to work in.
"Aggregating a couple of thousand car batteries virtually, when we know that they will all be charging overnight in, let's say, southern Sweden, we can then offer to the grid operator to turn the charging process off for a couple of seconds." — Max Scherer, COO of Monta
Radical Transparency at 250 People
Monta shares salaries, share holdings and the company's bank balance with every employee. It uses transparent salary bands and career paths and leaves very little room for individual deals. Max says this heads off the water-cooler conversations about who got what. The company was hiring at the time; open roles are on the Monta careers page.
"We find that transparency is a great way of preempting discussions." — Max Scherer, COO of Monta
Life in Copenhagen
Copenhagen is quieter than Berlin, very family-friendly and close to the rest of Europe. Max also explains J-Day, the annual release of Danish Christmas beer, which he calls "an acquired taste".
Questions Discussed in This Episode
How does Monta's software simplify the management of EV charging infrastructure?
How does a monthly fee per connected charge point create value for business customers?
What drove Monta's 2023 growth and its €80 million Series B in a difficult market?
What challenges and opportunities does Monta see in the US, including vehicle-to-grid?
Why does Monta make charging hardware-agnostic, and what does that mean for drivers?
Why does Monta share salaries, equity and company finances with every employee?
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Monta do?
Monta is a software platform for EV charging. Charging operators, companies and cities use it to manage charge points from different manufacturers in one system, and drivers use the Monta app to charge. It is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Who founded Monta?
Monta was co-founded by Casper Rasmussen, who is its CEO. He started the company after a poor experience with a charging operator's app in Copenhagen around 2020.
How does Monta make money?
Monta's main business model is software as a service: business customers pay a monthly fee for each charge point connected to the platform.
How much funding has Monta raised?
In January 2024, Monta announced an €80 million Series B, bringing total funding to €130 million in three years. Its October 2024 US announcement put total funding at $141 million since 2020.
Full Transcript
The automated transcript of the full conversation is in the original post on our Medium archive. More on the company: Monta on the Startuprad.io entity index and Top 5 Episodes 2024: How Monta Is Leading EV Charging Solutions.
Sources
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About the Author
Joern "Joe" Menninger is the founder of Startuprad.io, Europe's leading English-language startup media platform covering Germany, Austria and Switzerland. With 740+ podcast episodes and over 1 million annual streams, Startuprad.io connects founders, investors, and corporate innovators across the region. Connect on LinkedIn
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