Mobi is a startup building an "energy operations platform" that goes beyond storing electricity to integrate operations and optimization. Chief Executive Lee Hyeong-gyu founded the company in 2021 out of concern that, while demand for electricity was rising rapidly with the spread of electric vehicles, data centers, and renewable energy, there were not enough systems to manage it efficiently.
In particular, at a time when the existing power grid remained centralized and showed limits in peak response and expense efficiency, the company focused on Jeju Island as a region equipped with distributed energy infrastructure. Mobi was established on Jeju Island to present a proof-based solution for the era of distributed energy.
Chief Executive Lee Hyeong-gyu said, "We founded the company not to simply supply energy storage systems, but to create an 'energy operations platform' that stores, operates, and optimizes electricity."
Mobi's business includes energy storage systems (ESS), distributed data center power solutions, and battery sharing, but the core is building a platform that uses renewable energy to cut electricity expenses and maximize efficiency.
In the ESS business, an AI-based energy management system (EMS) is combined to forecast generation, analyze power use patterns, and automatically optimize charging and discharging. Through this, corporations can reduce power peaks and achieve expense savings. An integrated hardware-software structure is cited as a competitive edge.
In the data center field, the company provides a solution that secures both electricity expense reductions and stability by combining ESS with power operations technology. A notable feature is that it has secured a recurring revenue structure by including not only equipment supply but also operations and maintenance.
In the battery business, the company views electric-vehicle batteries as "energy assets" and is building a reuse and sharing model. It has developed a standard exchange-type battery usable for agricultural ESS, farm machinery, small mobility, and smart streetlights, and is expanding based on this into a battery-as-a-service (BaaS) sharing offering.
Mobi has been building results by conducting demonstrations and commercialization in parallel, centered on Jeju Island. Every year since its founding, it has won local innovation R&D projects to develop an AI-based energy operations platform and battery management technology, and it has carried out demonstration projects on electric-vehicle battery reuse and energy operations in cooperation with Jeju Technopark (JTP), Jeju Free International City Development Center (JDC), and Jeju Agricultural Research and Extension Services.
The company is also taking part in Jeju Island's designated special zone project for distributed energy, pushing a business that links and operates modular data centers with renewable energy. It also secured a growth base by being selected for the 15th cohort of IBK Changgong Guro.
There has also been a change in business strategy recently. Since 2024, Mobi has shifted from technology development to a revenue-model focus. It reorganized its business from an ESS-centered approach to one centered on the power demand resource market, such as smart farms and modular data centers, and moved away from one-off projects to build a recurring revenue structure that includes operations and maintenance.
Lee said, "We have moved beyond the technology verification stage and entered a full-scale scale-up phase."
Going forward, Mobi plans to expand its business in step with the growth of markets where power demand itself, such as data centers, becomes a resource. The goal is to expand the ESS-based energy operations platform into various industries and, by combining battery assetization with a circular-economy model, develop it into an integrated energy platform that spans storage, operations, and reuse.
The company also plans to gradually advance next-generation energy technologies such as biomass, hydrogen, and long-duration energy storage, along with microgrid-based power operations technology.
The company is currently raising a Series A round, and the funds secured are to be invested in advancing power supply and operations technologies for flexible demand resources such as modular data centers and in entering global markets. Lee said, "Our goal is to first implement an industrial version of a model like the United Kingdom's Octopus Energy 'Kraken' and enter the global market."