enspired, an AI-based power trading startup based in Vienna, has secured €25.5 million in Series B funding. The investment round was led by Zouk Capital, which recently invested in Dendra Systems. PUSH VC, Banpu NEXT, Vopak Ventures and Presidio Ventures, Emerald Technology Ventures, Helen Ventures, 360 Capital, and EnBW New Ventures also participated in the round.
The investment will be used to accelerate the energy transition with grid-transforming power asset optimisation.
What challenge does it resolve?
Spot markets have seen skyrocketing growth over the last few years yet are difficult to understand and hard to enter for most players. Trading on a short-term energy exchange requires hard-to-find trading talent, a 24/7 shift setup, and access to the market. That alone is a big enough hurdle for most players not to bring their flexibility to the exchange.
Resolving this, enspired’s founders – Juergen Mayerhofer, Wolfgang Eichberger, and Mario Schmoltzi, bring decades of experience in the energy and software industry to the fully digital trading-as-a-service (TaaS) company. It uses AI to advance from traditional trading. enspired commercially optimises power generation, storage, and consumption assets on so-called “spot markets” – short-term power exchanges that help to balance supply and demand.
enspired’s TaaS platform eliminates entry barriers and promises the most profitable way for its clients to trade flexibility. This setup has sparked interest from asset owners, storage operators and demand-side resources alike, and the company has seen tremendous market interest across Europe early on.
In-house power trading platform
The company’s fully automated in-house trading platform is touted to be fastest on the European short-term power market, enabling customers to monetise the full potential of their flexibility with minimum time-to-market.
As enspired solidifies operations across Europe, it is eyeing Asia and the US as well. This expansion is supported by a versatile trading platform that adapts seamlessly to new markets, use cases, and revenue streams. High-quality customer service and a steadfast commitment to going the extra mile are hardwired into the brand promise.
“We are grateful to be in a position that allows us to choose partners whose ambitions and values align with our own. Going global with our asset-centric trading service will make flexibility so profitable that investments are directed away from fossil fuels into clean energy. In the last year alone, we enabled over one million tons of emission savings, and this is only the beginning,” said enspired CEO and Co-founder Jürgen Mayerhofer.
“enspired’s AI-based approach to power asset optimization and the dedication to the energy transition represent precisely the type of innovation we aim to support at Zouk,” commented John Higelin, Partner at Zouk Capital. “Leveraging digital technology to deliver more value for renwable energy and storage assets while improving grid stability is crucial for accelerating the energy transition. enspired’s vision aligns fully with Zouk’s impact mission. We are delighted to support them during this next phase of growth and look forward to working closely with the team.”
“enspired shapes the energy sector in a way that echoes how large language models transformed the world of information management and processing. We will channel significant investments into the establishment of our technology as a global top-tier battery optimization engine. Reinforcement learning is ahead of all other artificial intelligence methods for solving complex practical applications and has been outperforming human reasoning in every aspect since 2017. Our proprietary technology stack is being meticulously tailored to such applications to ensure superior performance,” said enspired CTO and Co-founder Wolfgang Eichberger.
