Investment in Asia’s First Venture Fund Specializing in Femtech, Which Addresses Women’s Health Issues2023/09/26

JERA Co., Inc. (“JERA”) has, through JERA Ventures^*1, invested in the NEXTBLUE II Limited Partnership (“NEXTBLUE FUND Ⅱ”), Asia’s first venture fund specializing in Femtech^*2 and women’s well-being.

JERA, under its dual diversity and inclusion (“D&I”) missions of "ensuring the happiness of employees and their families” and “enhancing corporate value,” is moving forward with initiatives aimed at promoting and improving D&I. As part of this, we aim to cultivate an equitable environment where diverse personnel can demonstrate their individual abilities,　and believe that the physical burdens that women face is one challenge to address. 
JERA plans to move forward in adopting Femtech to address women’s unique health issues, but because the Femtech market in Japan is small we need to incorporate solutions by connecting with global startups.
NEXTBLUE FUND Ⅱ aims to improve the well-being of women across Japan by pursuing investments in global startups in the Femtech sector. JERA decided to invest in the fund as it seeks to create a comfortable working environment for female employees.

In collaboration with startups that we connect with through our investment in NEXTBLUE FUND Ⅱ, JERA will support the development and dissemination of Femtech sector technology by, for example, having employees and their families test startup products and services. By offering diverse options to female employees, we will work to foster an environment in which they can realize their full potential.

To address the world’s energy issues by creating new value and offering new solutions, JERA will move forward to build an organization and culture that enables all our diverse personnel to thrive and to contribute to achieving D&I across society.

1    JERA Ventures: An internal corporate venture capital (CVC) organization established to accelerate innovation in the energy domain and to generate new business opportunities. There are three targeted technology areas: 1) Energy transformation (decarbonization technologies), 2) Customer-centric (digital technologies offering new value to customers), and 3) Corporate (well-being, Femtech, etc.).

2    Femtech: A neologism combining “female” and “technology” that refers to technology-based products and services that address women’s health issues.

NEXTBLUE FUND Ⅱ Overview