Author: Jules Besnainou

Paris is on Track to Become the European Capital of Cleantech – are Foreign Investors Ready?

Jules Besnainou
Posted on by Jules Besnainou
European cleantech has been thriving in the past five years. In this period, investment into start-ups has more than doubled to $5.2 billion deployed over 566 deals in 2018, representing 28% of global cleantech deals. For the first time in years, France was one of the top two EU destinations for investment, places typically held by the UK, Germany and Israel. As it benefits from a wave of innovation and capital, a friendly government and looming Brexit, France could claim... Read More »

Blockchain in Energy & Mobility: A report from the scale-up frontlines

Jules Besnainou
Posted on by Jules Besnainou
Last month, we held our second executive summit on blockchain in New York. Like last year, leading corporate executives gathered to meet some of the most promising innovators in the space. But the state of play has changed radically over the year, and so has the mood. Last November was full of hype, in the middle of the peak ICO wave. 2018 had a crisp “rubber hits the road” flavor. This was echoed in the rich content planned for the... Read More »

Autonomous Datasets and V2X Transactions: Blockchain in Mobility Pilots Getting Traction

Jules Besnainou
Posted on by Jules Besnainou
With connected, electric, autonomous and shared mobility on the way, systems that can handle increasingly complex data and transactions have to be built. In the last couple of years, automakers and blockchain companies alike have been exploring ways to apply distributed ledger technology to the mobility space and tackle some of these challenges. Ahead of our executive summit on Blockchain in Energy & Mobility taking place in New York on October 24th, we talked to some of the major market... Read More »

Blockchain in Energy & Industry Raises $1 Billion – and Heads into Challenging Times

Jules Besnainou
Posted on by Jules Besnainou
Two weeks ago, I had the privilege of keynoting the second edition of EventHorizon (EH), the largest conference on blockchain in the energy space. The bar for this event was set impossibly high after the last edition paved the way for a year of extraordinary developments in the space. The EH team delivered an even more impressive production, turning an old Berlin power station into a futuristic spaceship, and spoiling us with shows of lights, violins and acrobatics – not... Read More »

From the Brooklyn Microgrid to EXERGY – A Conversation with Lawrence Orsini, CEO of LO3 Energy

Jules Besnainou
Posted on by Jules Besnainou
Article contributor: Jonathan Koch, Junior Analyst, CTG LO3 Energy is the organization behind the Brooklyn Microgrid. The company recently announced the launch of EXERGY, a blockchain-based energy marketplace that aims to empower consumers with access to and control of their energy data, and redefine how they interact with energy markets globally. To learn more, we spoke to Lawrence Orsini, the company’s CEO, who will join us at next week’s Cleantech Forum San Francisco on January 22-24. Jules Besnainou: What is the... Read More »

AI, Blockchain and Hype in Cutting-Edge ICT: Thoughts from the road

Jules Besnainou
Posted on by Jules Besnainou
In the past two years, CTG has been building a research stream and practice to help corporate and investor clients gear up for new, ever-faster waves of disruption coming from the software world – our At the Cutting Edge research. In the blockchain space, for instance, we have been helping corporates understand relevant use cases and connecting them with the right innovators. A few weeks ago, we held a private executive summit on Blockchain in Energy & Industry in Boston,... Read More »

Blockchain and Supply Chain Financing: A Conversation with Skuchain

Jules Besnainou
Posted on by Jules Besnainou
On November 9th in Boston, we will be hosting our  executive summit on Blockchain in Energy & Industry - a good excuse to catch up with some of the most interesting projects happening in the space. Founded in 2014, Skuchain is applying blockchain technology to the digitization and financing of the supply chain. To learn more, we spoke to Rebecca Liao, who heads Skuchain’s Business Development and Strategy, and to Ranga Krishnan, the company’s VP of Technology, who will join us... Read More »

Blockchain and IoT: A Conversation with Dominik Schiener of the IOTA Foundation

Jules Besnainou
Posted on by Jules Besnainou
In its landmark Device Democracy report a couple of years ago, IBM highlighted a series of challenges that connected things would face when scaling from the tens of billions to the hundreds of billions in the coming years. Among these challenges, cost of connectivity, the erosion of trust in the internet, and broken business models for connected devices stood out as hurdles already affecting IoT innovation. [caption id="attachment_15140" align="alignright" width="200"] Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder, IOTA[/caption] The report pointed out that using... Read More »

Diving into blockchain use cases: Wholesale energy trading

Jules Besnainou
Posted on by Jules Besnainou
Blockchain technology is gaining momentum in the energy sector. In our latest State of the Market, we tried to give a first overview of this ecosystem – the innovators, corporates and investors making bets in the space. While this state of the market is already in need of an update, our assessment is that there is an even stronger need for understanding specific use cases and deployments. Which ones are actually getting piloted? Why use blockchain for this problem? How... Read More »

Blockchain meets Energy: State of the Market

Jules Besnainou
Posted on by Jules Besnainou
Was it only a week ago? On February 14 and 15, two communities met in Vienna, Austria to discuss the promise, prospects and challenges of applying blockchain technology to the energy sector. To many in the audience, Event Horizon 2017 felt like a turning point. Energy professionals, caught by surprise by the rise of distributed generation, wouldn't miss the next wave of disruption. Blockchain innovators, touting the benefits of decentralization, were ready to rumble with a notoriously inert industry. The enthusiasm in... Read More »