The barriers to owning an electric vehicle (EV) are rapidly disappearing, and now Vyro is doing away with the notoriously poor customer-service that’s usually found at car dealerships. They’re educating customers and delivering competitive deals on EVs.
OnImpact spoke with Will Wise, CEO and co-founder of Vyro
What does your business do, and who are your customers?
Vyro is Australia’s first virtual dealership tailored exclusively for electric vehicles. We help our customers learn about the benefits of going electric, as well as a seamless way to make it happen. When a customer is ready to make the switch, we trade in their old car and credit it instantly towards our range of new and used electric vehicles.
What’s the core problem you’re trying to solve?
We’re here to put electric vehicles in reach of everyone. This means making the education, purchase and ownership as easy and painless as possible.
How have you seen investor interest in the climate-tech space develop in the past 5 years
We were incubated through Antler Australia’s fifth cohort in late 2021, which gave us not only a huge advantage when reaching out to investors but also some clear insights into the market across non-climate-tech businesses. Honestly, being green has give us a huge advantage and I’m really proud of Australia’s humble interest in putting money where it matters most. Whilst 2022 has been difficult for many, climate-tech, particularly early-stage, remains strong and active.
What support (from Government or other stakeholders) would help accelerate growth in the climate-tech space?
We’re at an industrial turning point right now where an alignment from Government could enable Australia to be an electric vehicle powerhouse. Local battery and vehicle manufacturing, is absolutely on the cards – but only if we invest our time and money effectively towards use of our country’s rich lithium deposits (a key ingredient in EV batteries and something we have an abundance of) and enabling local innovation through climate-focussed tax incentives for early stage investors.
Was there a business (either local or globally) that influenced the development of your organisation?
Our business was formed from experiencing a problem first hand. If you head into a dealership today, most of them don’t have a clue about their electric range. If you’re informed enough to get past that, you’re still left with an unfair & confronting negotiation with a sales person who will go the extra mile to upsell you on everything that you don’t need.
In addition to seeing the problem, we saw players overseas who were growing rapidly and wanted to follow suit with our own spin. Cazoo for example, who raised more than $300m AUD in less than 2 years and have seriously changed the way people buy cars in the UK by selling them online and delivering them on a branded lorry.
What’s in store for your business in 2023?
We are just at the tail end of a fundraise now and have some big plans for 2023. We’ll use this year to build an ecosystem of products and services that save our customers time and money. By the end of the year, we’ll be bundling up everything that you buy as part of an EV purchase for a discount that you won’t find elsewhere. Chargers, insurance, roadside assistance, you name it. You’ll be much better off buying through Vyro, than you would be elsewhere.
Earlier this year we announced a partnership with ActewAGL, the ACT’s largest energy retailer, and are now providing the energy giant’s customers with access to a great range of electric vehicles, finance and chargers through a dedicated platform – The evHub.
I’m excited to say we have a number of similar partnerships in the works and will continue to work with organisations like this to grow our footprint and increase adoption.