Page 18 - bne_newspaper_May_04_2018

Southeast Europe
May 4, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
Rival start-ups from Romania
Earlier this year, another Romanian start-up, Re- start Energy, which is already active in electricity and gas supply, raised $30mn in cryptocurren-
cies by issuing 400mn MWAT tokens in an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) aimed at financing a block- chain-based trading platform for renewable energy, including a complex franchising system in order to build “a global energy supply platform using block- chain protocol to democratise a sector burdened by bureaucracy and transaction costs, freeing up capital, saving consumers money, helping local small producers earn more and allowing real peer to peer direct energy trading using existing infra- structure”. More specifically, Restart Energy plans to expand its energy retail business (including by franchising) to more than 45 countries with dereg- ulated markets and generate $3.78bn in revenues through 2023 by delivering 189TWh of electricity (including through its franchisees).
Bittwatt has come up with a somewhat simpler business model, perhaps a wise decision given the already high complexity generated by the blockchain technology used. The business plan envisages a turn- over of $690mn (notably its model does not include franchises) and a 22% profit margin. Its ICO, which took place in April 2018, had a target of $30.4mn, and was declared successful at above $25.3mn. All tranches were successfully closed as of April 26. The Bittwatt co-funders, Stoicescu and Christian Hagmann, are experienced in both the IT and the energy sectors. In 2017, after more than 20 years
in the energy sector, Hagmann started working as advisor on the ICO of Coss, a Singapore-based crypto-one-stop-solution platform, and also started developing Bittwatt. With an IT academic education, Daniela Stoicescu co-founded Bittwatt after having previously carried out several devel- opment projects for the national power distribu- tion and transportation networks.
Bittwatt creates a matchmaking system based on blockchain that both decentralises and streamlines energy trading. It also creates a proper electrical power balancing system, and a fully transparent, 100% secure ledger of transactions and costs for all parties involved. At the root of the system are the smart contracts (otherwise called self-execut- ing contracts). Thanks to the blockchain technol- ogy, which in essence registers those contracts (instantiated in the form of computer code) in a way that they cannot be backward changed, these contracts are automatically consolidated, allowing optimisation of the production function.
Bittwatt has already started developing a new marketplace for electricity balancing and trading — which is blockchain enabled — that incentivises producers and opens up competition on a level playground, according to its White Paper. Further steps are envisaged quite soon.
"The Beta version of the platform will be available in May in Bulgaria (Energy Market) and Romania (Eva Energy) and will allow suppliers and consum-