Florent Breton, CEO & Co-Founder, Paren
Tesla’s 2012 Model S launch inspired car enthusiast Florent Breton to pursue a career in the electric vehicle industry. Now he’s parlaying his passion into his new venture, Paren, a platform for electric vehicle charging data, which achieved B Corp certification last year.
As a record-breaking 122.4 million Americans return from holiday travel and settle into work, Florent—one of CANOPY’s longest-standing Members and occasional barista—shares why he believes a billion people will use public charging infrastructure by the end of 2030, and what that might mean for our grocery and Starbucks runs.
What is Paren?
Paren is a platform for electric vehicle charging data. When you drive an electric vehicle, you need access to information. You need to know where the stations are. You need to know how much it will cost to charge your car. You need to know whether a spot is available, whether the charging equipment is in good working order, whether there is a grocery store nearby so you can run errands at the same time, and so on.
We aggregate data from over 10,000 EV charging stations in the US daily, down to the live activities of each station. Then, we enrich and standardize that information with a proprietary reliability indicator, for instance, whether a station is up and running—something we developed specifically for this sector.
Who are your target customers?
Various enterprise customers consume the data. Number one: around 70 charging station operators in the US. While they can track their own performance most of the time, they lack insight into what is happening across the street, across the state, or across the nation. The more famous brands are Tesla and Electrify America, but there are also very small regional players that operate 100 stations or just one station. If you visit the Paren website, you can see the operator leaderboard, which is very cool.
Automakers are another partner. They understand that the next cohort of people who purchase an EV, early adopters, will want minimal friction and won’t want to juggle lots of apps or struggle with charging—these consumers will want that information to come natively from their cars, their in-car dashboard, or Google Maps or Apple Maps. Map makers are another target for us, as are rideshare operators and delivery services such as Uber and DoorDash. All of these players want to provide reliable information in their apps to drivers so you can embark on a journey with a clear understanding of which stations are available, how much it costs to charge a vehicle, and more.
What are your most significant milestones to date?
Our platform in itself is a major achievement. The market is incredibly fragmented, and many industry leaders believed it would be impossible for a single platform to provide an overview of the entire US market. We’ve achieved this visibility with a very small engineering team and through key partnerships with companies like Mercedes-Benz. We are a fast-growing startup across every metric— revenue, customer count, product innovation, and gross margin. We’ve been covered in the media a lot, including The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Marketplace, Wired, The New York Times… Our investors are fairly happy with where we’re at right now.
We also wanted to align our vision with our mission of accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles and having an impact beyond our goal of financial stability. Inspired in part by CANOPY’s leadership and CANOPY’s journey to becoming a certified B Corporation, Paren achieved B Corp certification in 2025. This gives us a framework to benchmark ourselves against the responsibilities that we bear within our ecosystem—our team members, partners, customers, and the environment.
What inspires you about the EV space?
I’ve been interested in cars since I was a little boy, and the automotive industry—especially its electrification and sustainability—has become a professional passion. After seeing the Tesla Model S launch in Santa Monica in 2012, I was fascinated by the Tesla company’s story and how electric cars would eventually impact how we move around. I was probably one of the first people to drive a Tesla in Paris; in 2018, I became Head of Business Operations for Tesla Energy, working on renewable energy technologies, including solar panels and batteries.
More than two decades after Tesla’s launch, the number of people who own an EV compared to those who own a gas or hybrid vehicle is relatively small. What factors will encourage drivers to go fully electric?
Two things. The first is that we need more charging stations. The majority of car buyers choose gas or hybrid cars over EVs because they’re concerned about the range of a charge, scarcity of charging stations compared to gas stations, and the time it takes to charge a vehicle compared with filling a gas tank. What we’re seeing is that station makers and operators are rolling out more charging stations, and that they’re faster and more reliable.
On the other hand, what we also need is access to more information. Charging stations are not advertised as clearly as gas stations, with a giant illuminated sign on the side of the road. Charging stations are mostly in parking lots. If you need to go shopping, you need to know whether there’s a working station in the Walmart parking lot and its price range. That’s what we’re solving. We’re very excited to bring our solution to market.
How did your cofounder, Bill Ferro, help you bring your idea to market?
I wanted to find someone to work with me on a company exploring EV charging data, and so I cold-called people from my Tesla and Silicon Valley networks. I connected with Bill, who was working on something similar and had developed a relevant technology—a groundbreaking algorithm for charger reliability that ultimately laid the groundwork for Paren. In February of 2024, I acquired his business, EVSession, in exchange for stock in the new entity so he could be my cofounder. I initially thought we would close on $500,000 in initial funding, but a few weeks later, I closed $2.5 million in seed funding.
How big is the market opportunity?
Gigantic. A key metric to discuss is the run rate, or the number of people we expect to utilize fast public charging infrastructure. All-electric vehicles can typically go between 110 and over 300 miles on a single charge. But say you’re driving 200 miles from San Francisco to spend the weekend skiing in Tahoe, you’ll need to stop at a fast public charging station to complete the return trip.
In 2025, we anticipated the run rate to reach 150 million, a massive volume of people charging on public infrastructure, in addition to day-to-day charging at home or at the office. We expect this run rate to rise to a billion, or close to it, by the end of 2030.
What key, perhaps unexpected, trends have you noticed in the data from last year?
We’re seeing players that aren’t explicitly in the EV market bundling charging with their existing product offering. For instance, Walmart has publicly announced that it will roll out charging stations at its locations so customers can shop and charge simultaneously. The average charging time is 35 minutes, I believe, nationwide, which gives people time to run an errand. That said, charging time is decreasing every month as charging station and car battery technologies improve, and cars charge faster. Looking at our summer 2025 data, we found that people chose to charge where there’s a fast-casual restaurant or a Starbucks nearby. I don’t know what Starbucks might have in mind, but bundling its offerings is a great way to attract and retain customers.
What goals do you have your sights set on now?
We are releasing an Application Programming Interface (API) to offer real-time access to our data. We now have the capacity to process 100 million charging events daily. It’s a significant number for us and a substantial figure for our industry. The next milestone is to continue working with more enterprise customers and keep on growing our venture.
You’ve been a CANOPY Member for a long time. How has your CANOPY Membership supported you on your entrepreneurial journey?
After five years, I’m probably one of the longest-standing Members here at CANOPY Jackson Square. I’ve experimented with CANOPY’s various tiers of Membership, from a Community Table—especially when we had limited resources—to a Personal Desk, which is what I have right now, and even a Private Office. When I have a meeting in South Bay, I go to CANOPY’s fantastic location in Menlo Park. This flexibility has been incredibly useful as my work and business pressures have evolved.
After leaving Tesla, before the pandemic, I co-created an e-commerce company called Acquire, which I sold to one of our enterprise customers. I wanted to get back into the entrepreneurial path and start another business. I was at the ideation stage for a few months, coming to the CANOPY office every day from 8 am until late at night, essentially facing a blank page and trying to understand what I should do next. Steve and the whole CANOPY team have always been very supportive.
I’ve seen great people come in to grow the community. I’ve got to know the CANOPY staff members well—they have consistently offered the highest level of products and services in the shared office sector, enabling entrepreneurs to focus on doing their best work. The result is that this is the most pleasant coworking space in the Bay Area. I love coming to the office every single day. It’s a great location, and it’s easy for me and many others to commute here by bicycle. My experience at CANOPY has been nothing but a pleasure.
What amenities do you enjoy most at CANOPY locations?
Aside from the consistently excellent service, I enjoy the coffee bars. Fun fact: I was the acting barista at Jackson Square for quite some time! During the pandemic, when the café was closed, I asked one of CANOPY’s community managers to train me on some basic barista skills. I was allowed to use the espresso machine, and I made drinks for anyone who wanted one. I got to know people’s orders—other Members would tap on my shoulder at my desk and ask if I could make them a cortado!
It was a fun experience that developed my personal relationship with coffee. I also gained a greater appreciation for the hard work hospitality staff put into getting everyone’s specific drink right when they serve Members, like me, who are always in a rush between meetings. I think that’s a great illustration of the diversity that we have at CANOPY, the quality of service that CANOPY offers, and the consistency that we enjoy every single day.
Did you still moonlight as a barista at CANOPY during your workday?
There’s a full-time barista who makes complimentary coffees for Members throughout the workday, but a few Fridays ago, I asked to do it. We quickly had a line of people waiting to get a drink. And then Raden had to shut it down—I only had time to make a few cups. I wish I could do it more often! I’m not really good at it, but I love to do it.
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not in the office?
I’m an extensive traveler. I’ve been to close to 50 countries. I’m always planning my next trip, and it’s become a running joke on my floor that people ask me where I’m going next. I happen to be pretty good at finding travel deals using tools like seats.aero and Roame to pay with points or cash—last winter, I found a $300 flight to Buenos Aires and took the whole family across Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. This summer, we went to Africa. I’ve always been excited about discovering the world, and I want to make sure my five-year-old daughter gets to see and engage with its incredible diversity and beauty.
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