Volta Charging, an electric vehicle charging station manufacturer, was an early entrant to the “everything is an ad network” trend when it started building an adjacent advertising and data business called Volta Media in 2016.
Now, Volta is among the first in what will someday surely be a crowded graveyard of former retail media networks.
Gas station and energy giant Shell, which acquired Volta in 2023, told employees on Monday that it will shut down the Volta business entirely, AdExchanger has learned from two sources with direct knowledge of the news.
Volta Media will be shuttered by November and its network of more than 2,000 charging stations will be dismantled this year.
In an email to AdExchanger, a Shell spokesperson confirmed the news, specifying that the group is “evolving to focus on high-speed public charging at Shell-branded sites like service stations and standalone EV hubs.” All 190 Volta employees will be let go, though some will have opportunities to reapply to similar jobs at Shell.
The backstory
Volta launched as an EV charging port maker with an advertising business in mind, according to a 2022 AdExchanger interview with Mike Schott, who joined Volta in 2016 after a stint as VP of sales at Viant.
Each of Volta’s charging stations carry (well, carried) two screens. These screens had some legit functionality, like managing the charging payment, but, as with companies like GSTV, LoopMe and others that put screens in taxis or rideshares, they are primarily a way to manufacture ad inventory.
Volta was also piggybacking on the general retail media trend – not just in launching its own ad network, but because the media actually helped it win new car-charging station deals. If grocery stores, malls or other big retail chains would agree to place Volta stations in their lots, a portion of the Volta ad inventory could be handed over to that retailer’s media business.
The idea was sound. But the market is a fickle beast.
Volta IPO’d by SPAC in 2021 with a $2 billion valuation, but by November of that year, after Volta had been public for just one quarter, the market cratered, particularly for data-driven advertising and DTC businesses.
By the end of 2022, Volta was in a death spiral, and Shell took a flier on the business for $169 million.
Does the Shell fit?
When Shell acquired Volta, it was a ray of sunshine for commerce media and digital out-of-home.
The synergies were plain, and Shell seemed excited about owning an advertising business.
“Beyond providing a charging service, Volta specializes in generating advertising revenues from screens embedded into the charge point, adding a source of non-fuel revenue from sites,” read the release.
This stance was noteworthy because huge businesses like Shell that don’t need to rely on advertising revenue have always been iffy if not downright pessimistic about ads. Shell’s primary business is gas stations and energy manufacturing, so why expose itself to controversy, regulation or litigation over a marginal business line?
As it turns out, although Shell appeared to like the net-new revenue stream in theory, the company was never quite equipped for or really interested in running a programmatic ad sales and services business, one current employee who will be let go in the coming months told AdExchanger.
Shell was “already cautious about media,” according to another source, who’s a former exec at Volta Media. And, on top of that, Volta was losing about $140 million per year as of the end of 2024, the source said. Volta was also missing its sales forecasts.
With that context in mind, Shell’s decision to call its $169 million bet a lost cause makes sense. According to the same source, Shell had been shopping Volta this year.
But the company wasn’t able to find a buyer – thus the decision this week to fire the media org and dismantle the physical charging network.
The vision just ran out of gas.
*This story was updated to reflect a statement from Shell emailed to AdExchanger after first publication.
