Alternō's Sand Battery Enters Japan: Decarbonizing Industrial Heat and Supplying Clean Heat for Greenhouse Farming

TSUKUBA, Japan, Oct. 31, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Alternō, an Asia-based climate-tech company pioneering sand-based thermal battery systems, announced today the establishment of Alternō Japan GK in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture. This marks a major milestone in the company's mission to decarbonize industrial heat — a sector responsible for over 30% of global CO₂ emissions — through affordable, zero-emission thermal energy storage.

Supported by the Ibaraki Prefecture Startup Visa Program and Leave a Nest, the new entity will serve as Alternō's regional hub for product localization, R&D, and pilot-scale manufacturing. The initiative is being developed in collaboration with Kikuchi Seiki Co., Ltd., and Yamazaki Industry Co., Ltd., with additional coordination from JETRO and Tsukuba City.

"Japan represents a key step in Alternō's journey to build a global network of clean heat solutions," said Hai Ho, Co-Founder & CEO of Alternō. "Through our partnerships in Ibaraki — one of Japan's most innovation-driven and agriculture-focused regions — we're creating a pathway to decarbonize industries that have long depended on fossil fuels. Our goal is simple: make clean heat accessible, reliable, and affordable for every factory."

Powering Japan's Industrial Heat Transition

Alternō's patented Sand Battery stores renewable electricity as high-temperature heat (up to 600°C) using abundant, recyclable sand as the storage medium. The system enables factories to transition from fossil fuels to renewable heat without compromising performance or safety. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, Alternō's system is non-toxic, fireproof, and made from locally sourced materials, ensuring both environmental and economic sustainability.

In Japan, Alternō will focus on delivering solutions for agriculture, such as low-carbon heat for greenhouses and food drying, as well as light manufacturing, including textile and material drying processes.

The company is also developing Alternō E, a next-generation sand-based electricity storage system for data centers and critical infrastructure, designed to replace lithium batteries while ensuring safe, stable and clean backup power.

Two Product Lines for the Japanese Market

Alternō Japan will introduce two key product systems:

• Alternō Hybrid — a modular thermal battery that combines electric and biomass heating for continuous renewable heat supply in rural agro-processing. The system enables farmers to convert organic waste into energy, reducing both costs and emissions.
• Alternō Mini — a compact thermal battery designed for small-scale facilities, research institutes, and demonstration projects. The system is being developed in partnership with Yamazaki Industry Co., Ltd., under technical coordination from Kikuchi Seiki Co., Ltd.

Alternō will publicly debut Alternō Mini at Tokyo ENEX 2026, one of Japan's leading energy exhibitions, featuring live demonstrations for both Japanese and international audiences.

Building Japan's Clean Heat Manufacturing Ecosystem

Alternō's Japan operations bring together a network of engineering and manufacturing partners — including Kikuchi Seiki for coordination and precision engineering, and Yamazaki Industry for prototype fabrication. This collaboration aims to accelerate product certification, reduce manufacturing costs through localization, and align Alternō's Sand Battery systems with Japanese industrial standards.

"We're deeply grateful for the trust and collaboration from Japan's manufacturing ecosystem," Hai added. "Working with Kikuchi, Yamazaki, and our partners in Tsukuba allows us to merge deep-tech innovation with Japan's world-class engineering excellence."

Investor and Ecosystem Support

Alternō's expansion into Japan is supported by leading ecosystem partners and investors, including ADB Ventures, UntroD Capital, JETRO, JICA, Leave a Nest, P4G, and NTT East.

 "We strongly believe in the power of technology transfer, and Alternō's expansion into Japan demonstrates how Asian innovation can transcend borders to help decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors. Alternō's expansion into Japan marks an important milestone, and we're proud to support their growth," said Pang Sittakaradej of ADB Ventures.

"Japan is a critical market for scaling clean energy technologies," said Daiki Kumamoto, Director at UntroD Capital Asia.

"Alternō's sand battery directly addresses one of the toughest challenges in industrial and agricultural decarbonization—reliable, high-temperature heat. We are proud to back their next phase of global growth."

Recognized as Deep Tech Venture of the Year 2025, Alternō continues to lead Asia's transition toward sustainable industrial energy through scalable, sand-based heat and power storage solutions.

About UntroD Capital Asia

UntroD Capital Asia is a leading deep-tech VC firm dedicated to fostering impactful technologies that drive sustainable growth. As the manager of the Real Tech Global Fund, UntroD Capital Asia partners with innovative startups and businesses addressing global challenges in sectors such as energy transition, sustainable agri-food, and industrial manufacturing. UntroD's hands-on approach and industry network provide portfolio companies with the resources and expertise needed to scale their operations and achieve lasting impact.

HP: https://untrod.inc 

About ADB Ventures

ADB Ventures is the venture capital investment arm of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), supporting early-stage technology startups with the potential to scale and deliver climate and development impact in Asia and the Pacific. Through dedicated funds, ADB Ventures invests at the seed and early stages with a focus on cleantech, fintech, and sustainable agriculture. Leveraging ADB's regional networks and expertise, ADB Ventures addresses critical financing gaps, catalyzes capital into impact technology sectors, and accelerates the deployment of transformative solutions across developing Asia.

About Alternō

Alternō, an Asia-based climate-tech startup, is pioneering sand-based thermal battery systems that deliver high-temperature, zero-emission heat for industrial and agricultural applications. Founded in 2023, the company is expanding its presence to Japan to accelerate clean heat adoption and local manufacturing. Alternō aims to drive the energy transition in hard-to-abate sectors across Asia and beyond, with a long-term goal of reducing 100 million tons of CO₂ emissions annually by 2030.

For media inquiries, please contact:
 Alternō
 race2zero@alterno.net 
 www.alterno.net

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Alternō's Sand Battery Enters Japan: Decarbonizing Industrial Heat and Supplying Clean Heat for Greenhouse Farming

Alternō's Sand Battery Enters Japan: Decarbonizing Industrial Heat and Supplying Clean Heat for Greenhouse Farming

Establishing a Strategic Foothold in North America, the World's Largest Beauty Market, to Accelerate Expansion Across Global Brands, Manufacturers, and Retailers

FORT LEE, N.J. and SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- VUSSENS Inc., a global beauty AI analytics company and a wholly owned subsidiary of NEWEN AI, a specialist in industry-specific AI analytics solutions, has established its North American operations in New Jersey and officially launched VUSSENS, its ontology-based AI beauty analytics platform.

New Jersey, where the North American subsidiary is based, is strategically located adjacent to New York, a major global hub for international business and consumer goods distribution, offering strong infrastructure and accessibility. VUSSENS plans to further strengthen its localization strategy in the North American market by actively leveraging its local partnership network, including connections with New York University (NYU) Stern and the Global AI Frontier Lab based in New York.

The VUSSENS platform, officially unveiled alongside the establishment of the North American subsidiary, is a beauty-specialized, ontology-based AI platform that integrates and analyzes cross-channel data from social media and e-commerce platforms in the U.S. market. Powered by a language model trained on more than 800 billion tokens and a multimodal AI engine capable of simultaneously analyzing video, audio, and subtitles across short-form content platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, VUSSENS enables highly granular persona analysis based on race, age, skin type, and consumer values. Going beyond simple measurements of keyword mentions, the platform structurally maps complex relationships such as trends and sales, ingredients and efficacy, and consumer responses and products, providing actionable market insights for businesses in the local market.

The platform integrates four core solutions, Marketing, Trend, Product, and Category, to support practical business decision-making. The Marketing Solution tracks the entire journey from product seeding and content engagement to reviews and purchase-conversion signals, while the Trend Solution captures diverse consumer responses in real time across ingredients, efficacy, formulations, colors, memes, and other dimensions. In addition, the Product Solution supports customized strategy development through AI-powered SWOT analysis and target-consumer analysis, while the Category Solution provides an overview of market movements and category-level opportunities. The platform also features K-Beauty trend analysis, which is gaining attention as a key benchmark in the global beauty market, further strengthening VUSSENS' competitive edge.

VUSSENS plans to pursue an aggressive sales strategy targeting the entire beauty value chain in North America. Its target customers include beauty brands seeking trend intelligence and marketing performance measurement, OEM and ODM manufacturers looking to optimize new product development and ingredient R&D, major retailers seeking to identify promising brands at an early stage, and agencies requiring sophisticated, data-driven insights for strategic proposals and solutions.

VUSSENS has also outlined a concrete roadmap for business expansion. Starting with its New Jersey subsidiary, the company plans to secure its initial customer base and gradually expand its sales hubs across key regions in the U.S., including the West Coast, South, and Midwest, ultimately building a sales network spanning North America. Building on its success in the North American market, VUSSENS plans to gradually expand its services into other major global beauty markets, including Japan, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, with the goal of establishing itself as a global beauty data hub.

*NEWEN AI(KOSDAQ, 463020)

About VUSSENS

VUSSENS is an AI-powered global beauty analytics platform that integrates and analyzes global e-commerce and social media data to identify beauty market trends, consumer demand, and changes across products and categories. By integrating major commerce and social data sources, VUSSENS delivers actionable insights across the entire beauty intelligence ecosystem, from Trends → Categories → Products → Marketing. One of VUSSENS' key strengths lies in its ability to connect data across otherwise fragmented channels, enabling businesses to identify emerging beauty trends and early consumer interest signals, while uncovering high-growth categories and product opportunities.

For more information about VUSSENS, please visit the official website: https://vussens.ai

Product Inquiryinfo@vussens.ai

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VUSSENS Establishes U.S. Headquarters in New Jersey and Launches AI-Powered Global Beauty Analytics Platform