On July 23, it was reported that Marubeni Corp., which is a large Japanese trading company, was partnering with WePower, which is located in Lithuania and offers a blockchain-based energy trading platform.

According to the report, Marubeni is providing WePower with a loan. Though, at the moment, it is not clear exactly what kind of stake in the platform they are receiving in return.

The energy platform that WePower has developed serves both small- and medium-size organizations. It does this by allowing them to easily procure small blocks of energy, in particular solar- and wind-powered energy, though various online purchase agreements.

The platform specifically focuses on the Australian market for electricity, which has often been locked out to smaller organizations. It does this by allocating large blocks of power that would normally go to large organizations. The platform also helps energy producers, which have been lacking sufficient customers for their large power blocks.

At the core of this platform is blockchain technology, which provides customers with increased flexibility. At the same time, it reduces how long it takes for them to negotiate a contract. Nikolaj Martynuik, who is the CEO of WePower, says that his platform takes away a lot of the complexity relating to energy procurement. The only thing that customers have to take into account when using the platform is the price of the energy.

In February of last year, in a single day, WePower raised an impressive $40 million during its initial coin offering (ICO). In an announcement that the company released at the time, they said that their platform would provide energy sellers operating in the wind- and solar-powered markets with the ability to generate capital for future projects by selling energy generated from these projects before they begin, in the form of cryptocurrency tokens.

This is not the first time that Marubeni has invested in a blockchain-based project that is related to energy. In February of this year, the company formed a partnership with a New York firm that is using blockchain technology for its energy-related startup.