Smart Energy Powerbrain Startup Closes Pre-Seed Funding, Led by Achmad Zaky Foundation

Energy efficiency development companies take advantage of smart technology in Indonesia, Powerbrain, announced the acquisition of its initial funding from the Achmad Zaky Foundation (AZF). The amount of funding disbursed is not stated, but this is the first step for a non-profit organization founded by Bukalapak Co-Founder Achmad Zaky to invest in the financial sector. impact.

This funding is expected to further strengthen the business foundation and expand market share power brain in the field of Smart Energy Management. The fresh funds will be focused on strengthening the development of technology and human resources to strengthen the business as an energy efficiency developer.

Founded in 2020, Founder and CEO of Powerbrain, Irvan Farasatha, said that this initiative started with concerns about the issue of global warming. By combining technology and financial solutions through Smart Energy Management, Powerbrain focuses on reaching the energy efficiency business to address the unmet energy management needs of a building in Indonesia.

Powerbrain offers four superior products, namely energy management, renewable energy, asset management, and electric vehicle charging solutions. Overall, the company makes electricity consumption at partner businesses more efficient, and is even able to reduce electricity bills by 20%-30%. They use schema profit sharing of the resulting savings.

Powerbrain runs its business on a business to business (B2B) basis. To date, the company has established partnerships with dozens of well-known companies and has participated in more than 100 building projects. Some familiar names include Pertamina, Mitsubishi Motors, Bukalapak, Shopee, Net, Kimia Farma, DB Schenker, and Suvarna Jakarta.

In running a startup engaged in the impact, the company has a mission to provide technology-based energy efficiency services that have a positive impact on the business continuity of partners. Irvan also revealed the challenges in terms of the unpreparedness of the market in understanding the importance of energy consumption. However, slowly but surely, people are getting more and more motivated to want to learn and understand.

In addition, through every solution presented, Powerbrain also wants to support the Indonesian Government's target of reducing Net Zero Emission (NZE) by 2060, through energy efficiency by using company-owned technology.

Rilwanu Lukman Amrullah, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Powerbrain, added that the company will also develop technology by presenting more innovative products and services to further facilitate energy efficiency and financial efficiency for partners. For now, by using Powerbrain technology, partners will get 3 main benefits, namely lowering operational costs, increasing building value, and increasing partner welfare.

Achmad Zaky, Founder of AZF, revealed that Powerbrain's business line, which is engaged in Smart Energy Management with the aim of helping people to manage energy consumption, is in harmony with the mission of AZF. Currently, his team is also focusing on startup companies that provide solutions related to impact, both in the education sector, green technology, and fintech that lead to inclusion.

“We have conducted a comprehensive study of Powerbrain by considering the common mission of creating high social impact. Achmad Zaky Foundation's investment in Powerbrain is to help fund technology startup companies that have value and potential to continue to grow sustainably to become a competitive company and have a broad impact on the progress of Indonesia," said Achmad Zaky.

AZF is not the only vehicle of Achmad Zaky in investing. Apart from AZF, he also runs init-6, a managed fund that focuses on investing in early-stage technology startups. Previously, through init-6, Zaky had invested in the edtech platform Education, local cloud service provider IDCloudHost, and Developer Community showcase.

Investments impact the environment

In recent years, the investment concept has an impact or impact investing increasingly attracting the attention of investors. According to the Global Impact Investment Network (GIIN), impact investments are investments made to generate positive and measurable social and environmental impacts alongside financial returns.

Recent estimates from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the global market for impact investing show that as much as $2,3 trillion was channeled into impact investments by 2020, $636 billion of which had a proper impact management system in place, according to the report 'Investing for Impact: The Global Impact Investing Market 2020".

DSInnovate recently published the results of his latest research entitled "Startup Report 2021-2022Q1", summarizing the dynamics of Indonesia's digital startup industry and ecosystem. In a survey conducted by DSInnovate, around 80% of respondents admitted that Indonesian startups had a positive impact on the environment. Around 45% of respondents chose scale 3, which means Indonesian startups have a significant impact on the environment.

In addition to Powerbrain, startups that are also engaged in impact in the environmental realm is Xurya, the company offers solar-based energy solutions, which are applied to the roofs of buildings. Some of the startups that are playing in this area include Warung Energi, Weston Energy, Forbetric, Erenesia, Khaira Energy, and Syailendra Power. Most work on the potential of solar power.