Investment of leading international utilities innogy and TEPCO will accelerate the development of Conjoule’s peer-to-peer energy trading platform. TEPCO is the first investor in an innogy Innovation Hub venture founded to build the leading decentralised energy marketplace enabled by blockchain technology.
Essen and Tokyo — Conjoule GmbH, a start-up developing peer-to-peer energy markets enabled by blockchain technology has closed a EUR 4.5 million Series A investment round from two strategic investors, the innogy Innovation Hub and Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO).
Conjoule is developing a peer-to-peer marketplace for producers and consumers of renewable energy, as well as owners of batteries and other sources of flexibility, to transact with each other without the need for traditional intermediaries. The platform and launch product which allows residential prosumers with solar photovoltaic installed on their homes to sell excess electricity to local consumers are currently being piloted in two German cities.
The Co-Founder and Managing Director of Conjoule, Sam Warburton, is a former employee of the innogy Innovation Hub. With a 20-year record in trading-based energy systems he and his team are ideally placed to develop new products for the decentralised energy world. Using blockchain technology, the Conjoule team are building one of the most exciting technology developments to enable new transactional models in energy.
With this investment Conjoule will continue to grow its technical team and to commercially launch the platform and initial product that have been in pilot during 2017 in selected markets in Europe, as well as to start the development and testing of the next products in Conjoule’s product roadmap.
“Conjoule has a clear vision to create tomorrow’s energy system: it’s decentralised, digitised and customer friendly. It follows the idea of the ‘sharing economy’ where consumers can buy energy directly from their neighbourhood via Conjoule’s platform. Conjoule is another example of the innogy Innovation Hub portfolio where we found and invest in new companies that have the potential of exponential growth in the future,” said Thomas Birr, Senior Vice President Innovation & Business Transformation of innogy SE and leading the innogy Innovation Hub.
“Blockchain technology will redefine what is possible within the energy ecosystem,” said Shin-ichiro Kengaku, Managing Executive Officer and Chief of the Global Innovation & Investments at TEPCO. “We look forward to partnering with Conjoule and the innogy Innovation Hub to gain hands-on experience and drive the transformation of the energy industry.”