Tag: TRENDE

Cleantech Group Names TRENDE Inc. a 2020 APAC 25 Company

2020 List Identifies Leading Private Clean Technology Companies in Asia Pacific

TRENDE Inc., an online renewable energy retailer in Japan, has just been included in the 2020 APAC 25 list produced by Cleantech Group, a global provider of research, consulting and events to catalyse opportunities in sustainable innovation.

The APAC 25 is a list of independent companies from the Asia Pacific region engaged in sustainable innovation that are viewed by the market as likely to have significant impact in a five-to-ten-year time frame.

Cleantech Group put together the third annual list of 25 companies through a combination of APAC-related inputs from the annual Global Cleantech 100 process and detailed contributions from an APAC 25 expert panel. The companies on the list had the strongest patterns of agreement across all the input points and were scored the highest.

“Although only customers can truly validate what we are doing it is encouraging to be included in the APAC 25 list. The main problem we are trying to address is the climate crisis. Obviously, this is a massive and complex problem. No single solution or company will solve the climate crisis. But anything we can do to accelerate the widespread adoption of solar power in Japan will definitely help, and this is the mission that we are undertaking,” said Jeffrey Char, Chairman and Co-founder at TRENDE.

Members of the APAC 25 expert panel play an important role in creating the list. Each provides between three and nine nominations, no more than a third of which can be portfolio companies (in the case of investors). Expert panellists can weight their nominations, and all nominations are blind (no expert sees the other panellists’ nominations). These nominations are then combined with the outcomes from the Global Cleantech 100 process, which benefits from thousands of data points.

The third annual APAC 25 list is made possible by the continuing support of ADB Ventures and Enterprise Singapore.

“The Asia Pacific region will dominate some of the new industries and supply chains that will emerge from global mega-trends such as alternative proteins, electrification and new mobility, to name but three,” said Richard Youngman, CEO of Cleantech Group. “It will also be a leader in digitalization, given its weight of population and the size of its industrial base. Both dynamics are borne out in our third annual APAC 25 list of rising star innovation companies from around the region.”

– For more information on TRENDE’s leadership in clean technology, visit i3connect.com, Cleantech Group’s leading market intelligence platform, and search for TRENDE.
– The complete list of APAC 25 expert panel members is available at https://i3connect.com/apac25/panelist.
– The 2020 APAC 25 companies will be featured online on October 20, 2020 in Cleantech Interactive’s October edition (https://interactive.cleantech.com/).

About Cleantech Group
Cleantech(R) Group provides research, consulting and events to catalyze opportunities for sustainable growth powered by innovation. At every stage from initial strategy to final deals, we bring corporate change makers, investors, governments and stakeholders from across the ecosystem the access and customized support they need to thrive in a more digitized, de-carbonized and resource-efficient future.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Laura Dolby
Cleantech Group
Tel: +44 (0) 203-743-8615
Email: laura.dolby@cleantech.com

About TRENDE
TRENDE Inc. is an innovative online renewable energy retailer selling electricity to residential customers in Japan via its Hot Denki (https://hotdenki.jp) and Ashita Denki (https://ashita-denki.jp/) service websites. TRENDE’s mission is to accelerate the widespread adoption of renewable energy and redefine the energy ecosystem in Japan with a customer-centric business model and innovative P2P platform. The company’s investors include Tokyo Electric Power, ITOCHU, Idemitsu and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority. For more information, please visit http://trende.jp/.

MEDIA CONTACT:
TRENDE Inc.
Email: pr@trende.jp

TRENDE Secures Series B Funding, While Establishing Strategic Partnership with ITOCHU

TRENDE Inc., a renewable energy retailer in Japan, announced today that it has successfully completed a Series B funding round from ITOCHU Corporation of 1 billion yen in a combination of equity and unsecured convertible bonds.

“We’re extremely pleased to have ITOCHU as an investor and partner in our mission to accelerate the widespread adoption of renewable energy in Japan,” said Tadatoshi Senoo, CEO of TRENDE. “Bringing together TRENDE’s expertise in distributed energy with ITOCHU’s leadership in energy storage systems creates a really powerful combination. We are jointly developing a new service that combines distributed solar generation with energy storage and expect to release it later this year.”

TRENDE’s current products include “Ashita Denki,” an online service offering residential customers simple and affordable energy plans and “Hot Denki,” a service incentivizing customers to become prosumers with an innovative third-party ownership model that enables homeowners to gain the benefits of having a solar system on their roof without the upfront costs of purchasing the system. TRENDE is also developing a peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity trading system in order to further facilitate the efficient use and adoption of renewable energy.

ITOCHU is the leader in Japan’s energy storage sector. The company has sold more than 30,000 of its “Smart Star” energy storage systems as of the end of March 2020 and integrated these systems with Moixa’s “GridShare” AI software to create a next-generation energy storage system. The company’s growing energy storage systems business helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the ratio of renewable energy, ensuring a stable power supply and realizing a distributed energy society.

“Given the intermittent nature of many renewable sources, energy storage has a critical role to play in facilitating society’s widespread adoption of renewable energy and the shift away from burning fossil fuels,” said Hiroaki Murase, General Manager of Sustainable Energy Business Department at ITOCHU. “We are excited to partner with TRENDE and share a common vision for a distributed energy society powered by renewable energy.”

About TRENDE

TRENDE Inc. is an online renewable energy retailer selling electricity to residential customers in Japan via its Hot Denki (https://hotdenki.jp) and Ashita Denki (https://ashita-denki.jp/) service websites. TRENDE’s mission is to accelerate the widespread adoption of renewable energy and redefine the energy ecosystem in Japan with a customer-centric business model and innovative P2P platform. The company’s investors include Tokyo Electric Power, Itochu, Idemitsu and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority. For more information, please visit http://trende.jp/.

About ITOCHU Corporation

The history of ITOCHU Corporation dates back to 1858 when the Company’s founder Chubei Itoh commenced linen trading operations. Since then, ITOCHU has evolved and grown over 150 years. With approximately 110 bases in 63 countries, ITOCHU is a major general trading company that develops a wide range of businesses globally in the fields of textiles, machinery, metals, energy, chemicals, food, living, information, and finance. In 2015 the company became the number one general trading company based on the strength of its non-resource related businesses. Consolidated net income in fiscal 2019 was 501.3 billion yen, the second consecutive year it exceeded 500 billion yen.