InductEV bets on Pennsylvania talent as clean energy funding faces political pushback

This story was reported with support from Pennsylvania Gets It Done and the BusinessPA team at the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. Their work connecting businesses to financial resources, strategic partnerships and tailored guidance aims to build a stronger, more successful Pennsylvania economy.

A King of Prussia-based electric vehicle company is seeing major gains , even as federal support stalls, thanks to its local connections

InductEV makes wireless charging stations for electric fleet vehicles for municipal transportation systems and transporting goods from ports to distribution centers. The company has clients all over the world and continues landing big national partnerships — but it’s staying in Southeastern Pennsylvania, instead of looking to uproot its headquarters to a bigger city, because of the abundance of qualified talent.

“It was a great place to recruit people,” CEO John Rizzo told Technical.ly. “The local Philadelphia university footprint, with Penn and others, is quite robust.” 

With top-tier talent and less competition than hubs like Silicon Valley, Rizzo — who spent much of his career on the West Coast — sees an opportunity to attract talent to InductEV in Pennsylvania. The goal is to become a major business by growing its local workforce, he said. 

Andy Daga, who founded Momentum Dynamics (which later rebranded as InductEV) in 2009, lived in the area at the time and opened its headquarters in Malvern. He quickly found a wide talent pool in electronics, software and inductive charging, according to Rizzo. 

InductEV moved to King of Prussia in 2023 when it opened a 50,000-square-foot research and development center. About 25 employees, most of the company’s staff, work from the space. 

By leveraging relationships with local universities, InductEV maintains its commitment to keeping its workforce local. For example,InductEV works with Drexel University on joint research and development projects and getting early access to potential employees.

“If somebody is in the Pennsylvania area and loves being in Pennsylvania because of the nature of the state and the lifestyle, then we can offer something really interesting to those folks,” he said. 

Top talent can’t solve every problem 

While InductEV isn’t struggling to fill out its workforce, it isn’t immune to industry challenges. 

The wider political and economic environment has posed some hurdles for the company over the past year, Rizzo said. As the federal government disinvests in electric vehicle infrastructure and clean energy programs, the startup has seen its target customers, mainly municipal transit systems and truck fleets, become more cautious. 

“While they remain interested in the technology, they also, in many cases, were going to rely on state or local or federal funds to deploy these systems,” he said. “What that ultimately means is that customers have just taken a little bit longer to make decisions.” 

The capital market has also been slowing down in the first two quarters of this year, especially in the electric vehicle and sustainability sectors, according to Rizzo. In fact, Philadelphia just had its lowest quarter for venture capital investment in the last five years. 

Despite these challenges, the company plans to deploy its tech for six new customers this year, including a partnership with International Terminal Services at the Port of Long Beach in California, according to Rizzo. 

InductEV also sees opportunities in the rise of the autonomous taxi industry. InductEV has a partnership with an electric taxi fleet in Sweden that expanded last month when the startup installed two additional charging stations, he said. 

“Despite the political rhetoric around the nature of sustainable and green energy,” Rizzo said. “There is … this superior user experience and superior economic advantage to going to electric vehicles.”