Amsterdam, 14 May 2026 — Milence signed a €120 million financing facility with a consortium including Edmond de Rothschild’s BRIDGE infrastructure-debt platform, Íslandsbanki, Invest-NL and Invest International, with EU InvestEU support — the company’s first access to capital markets beyond its founders’ €500 million equity. Proceeds fund the hub rollout: 34 operational hubs in eight countries at signing, 16 more in development, 90 expected by end-2028.

Why this is a market signal, not a finance footnote. Infrastructure debt funds are the most conservative money in the energy transition; they lend against contracted, predictable cash flows. Their willingness to lend into truck charging — at ~€294,000 implied cost per charging point, against utilisation still ramping — means the sector’s risk perception has shifted from “pilot” to “infrastructure”. That perception shift matters to fleets indirectly: financed infrastructure gets built on schedule; speculative infrastructure doesn’t. McKinsey estimates Europe needs €7 billion in truck-charging investment by 2030 and €40 billion by 2040 — this facility is the first proof that institutional capital will show up for it.

For fleet planners. Note the quoted build rate: 34 hubs in May 2026, 90 by end-2028 — roughly 28 per year. Pair that with the alliance’s MCS deployment (live at Antwerp, Zwolle, Landvetter; 2.8 MW combined MCS capacity at Antwerp) and country-level market pricing (€0.339–0.379/kWh in France and Belgium), and the corridor charging case strengthens on a two-to-three-year horizon exactly in step with the 2030 CO₂ cliff. Fleets timing long-haul electrification should date their readiness reviews to this build curve, not to press-release promises.