Investment Notes: Hachiko

Investible’s Climate Tech Fund has invested in Hachiko’s seed round alongside Archangel, Twynam, Motion Capital, Electrifi Ventures and more! In these investment notes, we’ll share why we chose to back Hachiko, from the accelerating shift toward distributed energy storage, to the critical software gap in the C&I battery ecosystem, to the exceptional founder-market fit and early commercial validation that position Hachiko to become the operating system for commercial-scale storage.

But Ben, the distributed BESS market is way too small!

Sure, a reasonable reaction.

Most public modelling (including AEMO’s ISP) overwhelmingly focuses on large, centralised storage and utility-scale batteries. But this is precisely where the opportunity lies.

AEMO’s forecasts systematically understate the speed and scale at which distributed batteries (<5 MW) can be deployed. Centralised infrastructure requires new transmission, complex approvals, and multi-year build cycles. In contrast, distributed batteries leverage existing grid capacity, connect faster, and avoid the decade-long logjam facing transmission-linked projects.

Real-world behaviour already contradicts the “small market” narrative:

1.    Wollemi Capital’s acquisition of MPower is a direct bet on scaling hundreds of 5 MW-class assets rather than waiting for single mega projects.

2.    KKR’s AUD 500m commitment to CleanPeak validates investor appetite for distributed C&I energy infrastructure.

3.    YESGroup and Birdwood Energy are rapidly building mid-scale batteries by plugging into existing substations and industrial nodes, not waiting for transmission upgrades.

4.    Globally, 2.6 TW of projects are stuck in US interconnection queues, prompting developers and financiers to pivot toward distributed alternatives.

Building forty 5 MW systems will stabilise the grid long before a single 200 MW asset reaches financial close. Australia is now entering an era where thousands of small-to-mid-scale batteries will be deployed acrossC&I rooftops, industrial estates, substations, business parks, logistics hubs, and behind-the-meter customer sites.

This is a market defined not by megawatt size, but by deployment velocity.

If distributed batteries become the dominant form factor for new storage over the next 10–15 years, a thesis already visible in developer behaviour, then the software layer orchestrating these assets becomes an incredibly valuable part of the energy stack.

Hachiko is building that layer.

Making Batteries Bankable

At its core, Hachiko is the intelligence layer that finally makes distributed batteries investable, financeable, and profitable at scale.Rather than acting as an aggregator or trader (and taking a slice of the upside), Hachiko is a SaaS platform that gives developers and asset owners full control, and full economic benefit.

The platform covers the entire lifecycle of a commercial& industrial (C&I) battery, from the moment a site is shortlisted to the moment it’s bidding into the market.

1.    Origination and Financing: Virtual Twin

Developers can instantly test the technical and economic feasibility of new battery sites. What previously took months of spreadsheets, consultants, and manual modelling now takes minutes. A live digital replica of each site shows lenders and investors exactly how the battery will perform once built, including real-life representations of operating projects for benchmarking. What previously took months of spreadsheets, consultants, and manual modelling now takes minutes. This reduces uncertainty, derisks project finance, and accelerates capital deployment.

2.    Operation: Optimisation Engine
Hachiko dispatches batteries in real time across wholesale arbitrage, FCAS, and network tariff management, and complex Power Purchase Agreements using machine-learning forecasts and live market data. Customers have already seen 40–75% revenue uplift versus manual or default OEM control.

3.    Portfolio-Scale Management

Developers, funds, and aggregators get a unified fleet interface for performance analytics, alarms, reporting, and multi-site control. From “pilot project” to “national portfolio” without adding headcount. Sophisticated traders know that a well-managed portfolio is greater than the sum of Its parts. Hachiko enables them to turn that knowledge into reality.

Hachiko is hardware-agnostic, NEM-integrated, and built specifically for the high-value, low-volume world of C&I storage, where missing a handful of trading intervals can make or break a project’s ROI.

A Founder with Deep Domain Credibility

Founder & CEO Rakhesh Martyn brings nearly a decade of hands-on experience trading, optimising, and deploying distributed energy assets at EDF, Enel X, and Evergen, and KochTechnology Solutions. His background spans chemical engineering, market operations, commercial optimisation, and portfolio trading, a rare combination that directly informs Hachiko’s product architecture.

Hachiko’s technical team mirrors this depth. With ex-Evergen machine-learning talent and BigCommerce-scale software engineering capability, the team blends energy- market expertise with world-class product execution and commercial traction.

This isn’t theory; it shows up in output.
Within just nine months, the team has delivered:

• A fully operational Virtual Twin for project origination
• Live dispatch control integrated with AEMO
• Machine-learning forecasting across load, solar, and market data
• Scale-ready multi-tenant dashboards and onboarding APIs
• A co-optimisation engine now rolling out across early customer portfolios
• Multiple long-term contracts with sophisticated battery project developers

Speed alone isn’t a moat.

But speed grounded in deep domain insight, validated by paying customers, and directed at an emerging category can be.

Our diligence made it clear: this team understands the pain-points of developers and traders more intimately than most incumbents and is executing faster than anyone else in the segment.

In short: Hachiko is building the software infrastructure the distributed storage market has been waiting for.

If distributed batteries follow the same adoption curve we’ve seen in behind-the-meter solar, EV charging, and DER aggregation, the market will need a system like Hachiko to scale from dozens to hundreds to thousands of assets.

The opportunity is large, the timing is now, and the team is one Investible is excited to back.