ELECTRIFY raises US$30mil to develop blockchain solution for energy

By Digital News Asia March 7, 2018

Funding will be used for expansion into SEA, Japan and Australia
Funds will help drive company growth, recruitment and product development

ELECTRIFY raises US$30mil to develop blockchain solution for energy

ELECTRIFY, Singapore’s first retail electricity marketplace, has raised US$30 million (RM117.1 million) in funding from institutional and individual investors via its token sale.

This funding will be used to power ELECTRIFY’s expansion into priority markets outside of Singapore, including Southeast Asia, Japan and Australia.

It will also help drive company growth, recruitment and product development.

Bolstering this effort, the backing of strategic investors such as Jun Hasegawa, CEO of OmiseGo and Wendell Davis, one of Ethereum’s original co-founders, and prominent Japanese VC Global Brain, ELECTRIFY is well poised to make electrical energy more accessible, sustainable, and affordable in Asia.

Key drivers behind ELECTRIFY’s platform include the rise of blockchain technology and the liberalisation of Singapore’s domestic electricity market in 2018.

With market liberalisation well underway, businesses and consumers across the region will have more options to manage their energy costs, as opposed to purchasing power from their governments at regulated tariffs.

ELECTRIFY CEO and co-founder Julius Tan, said: “Countries across Southeast Asia are starting to liberalise their electricity markets. By aggregating retail electricity offerings on our platform with our proprietary pricing engine and blockchain solution, we bring better-informed choices at more affordable prices to the consumer. We are truly delighted and heartened by the amount of support shown by the energy industry, and look forward to the positive impact our platform will make for millions of lives in Asia.”

Towards achieving its goal of building a global, intelligent energy ecosystem, ELECTRIFY will look to play a leading role in bringing Asia’s energy providers onto the blockchain, building on the same revolutionary technological framework as Ethereum.

They will also be exploring building ecosystem-driven solutions using OmiseGo’s technology and executing them on the blockchain.

“Our vision for ELECTRIFY is to build a better and smarter electricity network, and it starts with an intelligent energy ecosystem.” said ELECTRIFY COO and co-founder Martin Lim. “Built on the tenets of blockchain, our solution will drive down operating costs, ensure the transparency of contracts, and also speed up and streamline contract validation and auditing. As retailers become more efficient, we foresee this translating into greater cost savings and convenience for consumers across the Asia-Pacific market.”

ELECTRIFY’s new electricity ecosystem, Marketplace 2.0 will be supported by smart contracts and enhanced by its peer-to-peer energy trading platform, Synergy, on city-wide energy grids across Asia.

Starting with Singapore in the second half of 2018, Electrify will host retail electricity smart contracts, allowing consumers to browse and purchase electricity from a variety of energy providers.

The smart contracts on ELECTRIFY’s platform will be enabled by a digital wallet that facilitates transactions such as bill payments and platform service fees.