enechain raises a total of JPY 6bn in Series B plus venture debt financing

Norbert Gehrke
Tokyo FinTech
Published in
2 min readApr 26, 2024

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enechain, which operates Japan’s largest wholesale energy trading marketplace, has raised a total of 6 billion yen through a third-party allotment for its Series B round, as well as additional long-term borrowing from four major banks.

In the Series B round, in addition to existing investors DCM Ventures and Minerva Growth Partners, and new investors such as JP Investment and the U.S. Soros Capital Management, funding was also received from 9 companies: JERA, a major player in domestic wholesale electricity trading; K4 Ventures, an investment subsidiary of Kansai Electric Power; Chugoku Electric Power; Chubu Electric Power Miraiz; Hokkaido Electric Power; Osaka Gas; Tokyo Gas; Sumitomo Corporation; and Mitsubishi Corporation, as well as SMBC Venture Capital, Mizuho Capital, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital.

enechain’s mission is to realize a prosperous economy and sustainable society in Japan through an open and fair market that allows the exchange of all kinds of energy values, from electricity to fuels and environmental values. Its cumulative wholesale electricity trading volume is approaching 2 trillion yen, making it Japan’s largest energy hedge market. It is contributing to minimizing the impact of global energy price fluctuations on Japan’s electric power industry, and ultimately stabilizing the Japanese economy. The environmental value trading it started last year is also steadily increasing in cumulative trading volume and number of trading companies, solidly promoting efforts to realize a decarbonized society.

From the perspective of realizing its mission, however, enechain’s business has only just begun. Going forward, it needs to create a larger and more convenient market that is open to all users. The funds raised this time will be used not only for development and additional functions to further improve the convenience of existing products such as the core product eSquare, but also to ambitiously incorporate cutting-edge technologies such as AI and LLM to enhance the user experience. Additionally, proactive investments will be made in marketing to increase brand awareness and deliver these products to more users, as well as in hiring engineers to drive product development and business personnel to powerfully promote the business. Currently, enechain is recruiting dozens of members in engineering and business roles to work together toward realizing its grand mission.

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Norbert Gehrke
Tokyo FinTech

Passionate about strategy & innovation across Asia. At home in Japan. Connector of people & ideas.