Why AVILOO's EIC Accelerator Battery Test Won Over ADAC and TÜV

The battery is the most expensive part of an electric car, and the part a used-car buyer can least judge. Capacity fades with age and use, and the state-of-health figure a car shows is, in AVILOO's words to the EU, "often not accurate and not reliable". AVILOO, founded near Vienna in 2018, set out to measure it independently of the carmakers. In the European Commission's list of the May 2020 EIC Accelerator pilot winners, the Green Deal round, it appears as the only company behind AVILOO bcheck, with blended finance, for "a testing system that provides an exact report on the actual state-of-health of any battery in any electric vehicle during a simple test drive".

The grant part was €2,228,847.25 towards a €3,184,067.50 project that ran from 1 October 2020 to 30 September 2022, according to CORDIS. The equity part also happened: the EIC Fund invested alongside the Austrian private equity firm Invest AG in May 2022, as reported by electrive and confirmed in AVILOO's December 2023 press release. In February 2026 the EIC Fund sold all of its shares to Armira Growth and Invest AG as part of a deal worth around €30 million.

Where AVILOO Stands Today

AVILOO is active and growing. On 11 February 2026 it announced a strategic investment of around €30 million, led by the German investment group Armira Growth with the existing shareholders Invest AG and Raiffeisen KMU Invest, subject to antitrust approval, according to the company's press release, electrive and battery-tech.net. The Austrian company register shows the deal went through: three Armira Growth funds were entered as shareholders in May and October 2026, and a shareholder listed only as "N.N." was removed in May 2026, according to evi.gv.at and North Data. Co-founder Nikolaus Mayerhofer left the managing board in September 2026, per the same register entries.

The company's pressroom lists a steady flow of news through 2026: a US partnership with the EV technology company Lectrium in December 2025, Brett Lippel named chief executive of its North American business in April 2026, and a large independent battery study launched on 10 September 2026.

The Technology: A Battery Check Without the Carmaker

An electric car's battery management system reports its own state of health, but that figure comes from the manufacturer, which also sells the replacement battery and handles warranty claims. Other solutions, AVILOO told the EU in its project objective, were "either commercially inefficient because extremely expensive, not accurate or not at all independent". AVILOO's approach, as described in its CORDIS report, combines its own hardware and software to record battery signals while the car is driven, matched against mathematical models of the battery cells used in common vehicles, built on the company's own cell test bench. The models correct for temperature and for how fast the car discharges.

The full PREMIUM test needs the car to be driven down from a high to a low charge. During the EIC project AVILOO added the "distributed full cycle", which lets the test be paused and resumed, and built a faster test. The faster FLASH test, on sale since mid-2022 according to the 2023 release, reads the battery in about three minutes without moving the car. At project end it could not yet calculate a state of health, the CORDIS report says; by 2026 the company describes it as a quick assessment of the battery's state that applies to more than 96% of electric cars on the road, a figure repeated by electrive. That coverage figure comes from AVILOO and has not been independently tested. The company says its methods are certified by TÜV and by CARA, the European car remarketing association, which Global Fleet also reports.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The CORDIS objective promised further development and "market uptake" of an independent test that gives an exact state-of-health report for "any battery in any electric vehicle" from a simple test drive. The project ran its 24 months to 30 September 2022, the end date on CORDIS, and its final report is published. It is unusually concrete about customers.

1. State-of-health test from a test driveDeliveredPREMIUM test on sale since summer 2021, per the 2023 release; cell test bench and models built, per CORDIS.
2. Easier, shorter testDeliveredGuiding app, pausable "distributed full cycle" and the three-minute FLASH test.
3. Quick state-of-health test for any vehicleLateFinished but limited to few models at project end; the company claims 96% coverage by 2026.
4. Market uptakeDeliveredMore than 1,500 tests sold to consumers in 2022 by the time of the report, and B2B partners in five countries.

The B2B partners named in the report are ÖAMTC and ARBÖ in Austria; GTÜ, ADAC, TÜV Süd, TÜV Nord and the appraisers' association BVSK in Germany; the Norwegian EV association and Viking Kontroll in Norway; ANWB in the Netherlands; and FDM in Denmark. electrive's 2022 report independently names TÜV Süd, GTÜ and ADAC as partners. The objective also claimed climate gains from longer battery lives and second-life use of batteries no longer fit for cars; no public data measures either effect, and AVILOO has not announced a second-life service.

What AVILOO Has Achieved Since the Award

The equity followed the grant. After Invest AG and the EIC Fund came in in May 2022, Invest AG and Raiffeisen KMU Invest put in more money in December 2023, when AVILOO said it had 35 staff and was active in 15 countries including France, the UK, the US and Australia, according to its release; the register records Raiffeisen KMU Invest as a new shareholder that month, per North Data. None of the amounts before 2026 have been published, and neither has the size of the EIC Fund's stake or the price it received.

By February 2026 the company reported more than 550,000 tests, more than 750 business clients in over 30 countries and annual growth above 100%. Its named customers include ADAC, British Car Auctions, Cox Automotive, Emil Frey, Pickles Australia and Arval, and Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz have built its diagnostics into their dealer networks, according to the 2026 release and the reports of electrive and battery-tech.net. All of these figures come from the company; the trade press repeated them without independent checks.

AVILOO also joined a second EU project. CORDIS lists it as one of 17 partners in CURRENT DIRECT, a Horizon 2020 project on swappable container batteries for ships, with an EU contribution of €536,750 for AVILOO; the project runs from January 2021 to June 2027. North Data also lists Austrian FFG research grants of €487,400 and €51,416 in November 2019, before the EIC award.

The EIC Fund's Round Trip

AVILOO's award was blended finance, and the equity part was actually invested. The EIC Fund's investment is described in AVILOO's 2023 and 2026 releases and in electrive's 2022 report. The Fund has since left: AVILOO does not appear on any of the 16 pages of the EIC Fund's list of invested companies checked for this article, which matches the 2026 sale. The price is not public, so whether the EU made money on the stake cannot be said.

Why Europe Should Care

The EU is regulating battery health from two sides. The Euro 7 regulation sets, for the first time, minimum battery durability for electric and hybrid cars: 80% of original capacity after five years or 100,000 km and 72% after eight years or 160,000 km, according to the European Parliament and electrive, which reported the Council's final approval in April 2024. The Batteries Regulation, in force since August 2023, adds requirements that phase in until 2031. Rules like these need a way to check a battery that does not depend on the carmaker's own reading, which is the gap AVILOO sells into.

A functioning used market also matters for the EU's switch to electric cars. The battery's state of health "determines its value to a high degree", the CORDIS objective notes. An independent European test of the battery, rather than one controlled by each manufacturer, keeps that judgement in neutral hands.

The Verdict

AVILOO has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.