Seattle startup Juicer Energy, led by ex-OfferUp CEO, aims to boost EV charging infrastructure

Electricity is all around us. So why aren’t there enough places to charge electric vehicles? It’s a question Nick Huzar asked himself after the OfferUp co-founder and former CEO was exploring his next startup opportunity. And now he’s on a mission to help improve EV charging availability across the U.S. Huzar is CEO and co-founder of Juicer Energy, a Seattle-area startup targeting apartment buildings, hotels, and businesses with a full-service approach to EV charging. The company is led by technology industry veterans and backed by $7 million in funding from investors including Match.com CEO Spencer Rascoff, CAA founder Michael Ovitz,… Read More

Apr 14, 2025 - 16:20

Seattle startup Juicer Energy, led by ex-OfferUp CEO, aims to boost EV charging infrastructure

Juicer installs EV charging infrastructure at apartment buildings, hotels, and businesses. (Juicer Photo)

Electricity is all around us. So why aren’t there enough places to charge electric vehicles?

It’s a question Nick Huzar asked himself after the OfferUp co-founder and former CEO was exploring his next startup opportunity. And now he’s on a mission to help improve EV charging availability across the U.S.

Huzar is CEO and co-founder of Juicer Energy, a Seattle-area startup targeting apartment buildings, hotels, and businesses with a full-service approach to EV charging.

The company is led by technology industry veterans and backed by $7 million in funding from investors including Match.com CEO Spencer Rascoff, CAA founder Michael Ovitz, former Eventbrite CEO Kevin Hartz, and others.

GeekWire first wrote about Juicer last year in July. Huzar shared more details about the company’s progress and vision in a recent interview with GeekWire.

Charging infrastructure is seen as crucial to support further EV adoption and meet carbon emission reduction targets. But EV owners have a “deep frustration with the state of charging infrastructure, including unreliability, erratic pricing, and lack of charging locations,” according to a Harvard Business School study.

“For somebody to win in this space, you have to have a really good, simple experience — not only for the consumer, but also the landlord,” Huzar said. “That doesn’t exist today. It’s not simple for either one.”

While some EV charging companies sell hardware to property owners who must then handle installation, permitting, and maintenance themselves, Juicer installs and manages the entire charging setup.

The company can assess a property and install its technology within 30 days, with the actual installation typically taking one day. Juicer installs more than just one or two charging stations — often around 10 per property.

“You really don’t see that much of today, because it’s too cost prohibitive,” Huzar said.

Juicer uses a device that manages electrical load across multiple chargers and helps property owners avoid expensive electrical upgrades.

The company sets charging rates with landlords. It makes money from initiation fees and monthly payments per active charger, which are Level 2 chargers. The company also shares charging revenue with property owners.

EV owners charge their vehicles with a Juicer smartphone app, which does not require WiFi or cellular connection.

Juicer has been installing its chargers to customers across the Seattle region, with plans to expand to more cities.

From left: Juicer co-founders Goutham Sukumar, Nick Huzar, and Amit Mital. (Juicer Photos)

Huzar stepped down as CEO of OfferUp in 2021, a decade after launching the Bellevue, Wash.-based used goods marketplace that facilitates 30 million transactions annually. He later launched a nonprofit focused on the climate change impacts from consumption, sparked in part from his interest in “circularity,” or the local movement of goods.

He’s a big believer that more people will be driving EVs, and expects rising adoption of autonomous vehicles. And he sees self-driving cars as an enabler for more transactions between people living in the same region.

“I think the planet benefits from that, because now you’ve got more goods moving locally versus shipping across the world,” Huzar said.

Amit Mital, a longtime Microsoft leader and former CTO of Symantec, is Juicer’s chief operating officer and co-founder. Mital launched a Seattle startup studio called Kernel Labs in 2015 and was most recently at the White House as a special assistant to the president and a senior director at the National Security Council.

Juicer CTO Goutham Sukumar, also a co-founder, was CEO of email security startup NitroDesk, which was acquired by Symantec in 2014. .

Juicer has less than 10 employees. Huzar said AI tools have been key to help automate and streamline workflows.

Other investors backing Juicer include Gautam Gupta, former CFO at Uber; Colin Hathaway, president at Flint Group; Jon Gelsey, former CEO of Auth0; and Bill Fishel, executive vice chairman at Newmark Capital.

Other EV charging startups in the Pacific Northwest include Electric Era, which installs fast-charging stations in retail parking lots; Autev, which is developing robots that autonomously charge EVs; and OpConnect, which sells hardware and software for electric vehicle charging stations.