East London-based start-up ChargedUp, which describes itself as ‘London’s First Mobile Phone Charging Network’, has announced its charging stations will be available at a number of Marks & Spencer stores in London.
Eight stores in London will initially have access to the charging stations, which let users charge their phone for 50p, with plans to expand further.
The eight stores are those located at Pantheon, White City, Bankside, Victoria Cardinal Place, Fenchurch Street and Finsbury Pavement, plus the two already open in M&S Merchant Square CafeÌ and Waterside Simply Food in Paddington.
ChargedUp battery chargers are fully powered by green energy, thanks to a partnership with green energy provider Ecotricity.
ChargedUp chief excecutive officer Hugo Tilmouth has hailed the deployment with M&S, which is poised to roll out within the next month.
“It’s a real honour for Marks & Spencer to say ‘yes’ to rolling out our ChargedUp stations in some of their best stores in London. It’s a really exciting opportunity for us.”
The rollout comes as part of M&S’s start-up programme through Founders Factory, a joint venture partnership focused on discovering and developing start-ups.
“Founders Factory partners start- ups with large corporates and one of its partners is Marks & Spencer,” said Tilmouth. “As we’re part of the M&S group, this resulted in our vending stations being trialled through the retailer.”
Vending stations are only currently available in London, but Tilmouth says there are plans to expand to other big UK cities.
“We’re looking at London for now. but in the next six months we will be looking to roll out to other cities in the UK.”
ChargedUp recently reached the milestone of 250 stations in London and has also served a million minutes of charge across the network, Tilmouth said.
