Led by Innovation Endeavors, seed round investors include DCVC, Amplo, BoxGroup and Lightning Capital; Energy market also welcomes new regulatory board members and advisors
CHICAGO, June 12, 2024 — ElectronX, a new energy exchange created to help accelerate the U.S. grid transition to renewable sources, today announced it has raised a $15 million seed investment round led by Innovation Endeavors.
ElectronX is building a robust and modern power market for the clean energy transition, smoothing the financial path of renewables adoption for power providers, consumers and industry innovators that currently face volatile short-term price exposure to electricity.
When approved by the U.S. Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) to operate as a regulated derivatives exchange, ElectronX will offer granular derivatives products, featuring fully collateralized and centrally cleared contracts, that allow electricity market participants of all sizes to hedge risk and monetize power assets on a highly accessible platform.
Additional seed round investors in ElectronX include firms DCVC, Amplo, BoxGroup and Lightning Capital, as well as individuals across the trading and power industries. The company has also appointed a number of respected industry leaders to its regulatory and advisory boards, detailed below.
“As more renewable energy sources like wind and solar power are added to the U.S. grid, their intermittent nature—coupled with the country’s rapidly increasing demand for electricity—has resulted in a volatile intraday pricing environment, especially during adverse weather events in high-population areas like Texas and California,” said Sam Tegel, CEO of ElectronX. “Our products will help manage this short-term price risk for a number of industry sectors including energy generation and storage companies, high-volume power consumers, and the growing number of small businesses and households with renewable assets that can benefit from the monetization of their investments in clean energy. We are pleased to partner with respected investors focused on innovative climate solutions who will help bring the ElectronX market to life.”
Sam Smith-Eppsteiner, partner at Innovation Endeavors, commented, “ElectronX is both capitalizing on and enabling a generational shift in the energy mix toward intermittent and decentralized renewable assets. By developing novel market infrastructure and financial products, ElectronX will offer significantly more granularity in trading electricity derivatives. This granularity will allow customers to manage risk more precisely, which is likely to drive improved return profiles and even accelerate the rollout of clean energy assets. We expect ElectronX to play a critical financial infrastructure role in the energy transition and are thrilled to partner with Sam and the rest of the experienced leadership team.”
Regulatory Board Members and Corporate Advisors
ElectronX also announced today its accomplished roster of regulatory board members and corporate advisors, who will work with the exchange to oversee and regulate its innovative marketplace.
“Our team will benefit immensely from the expertise and guidance of these respected veterans in the regulated markets and energy industries,” said Sam Tegel. “Our new board members join Eric Noll, who has advised us since last year, and I look forward to working with them all as we pursue CFTC approvals and continue developing our platform and regulatory structures.”
ElectronX’s Designated Contract Market (DCM) and Designated Clearing Organization (DCO) board members include:
- Eric Noll, Chair of Board of Governors at Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and CEO, Stone Ridge Capital Partners; formerly President & CEO at Covergex; EVP at Nasdaq; and various roles at Susquehanna International Group
- Anita Herrera, General Counsel Emerita at Nodal Exchange; formerly General Counsel, Chief Regulatory Officer & Corporate Secretary at Nodal Exchange and Nodal Clear
- Rick Redding, CEO at Index Industry Association; formerly Managing Director, CME Group
- Kim Taylor, Former President of Global Operations, Technology & Risk at CME Group; formerly President, CME Clearing
- Scot Warren, Former COO at Options Clearing Corporation (OCC); formerly Senior Managing Director, CME Group
ElectronX corporate advisors include:
- Neil Chatterjee, Former Chairman and Commissioner, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
- Ben Rogers, Chief Development Officer at Electrada
- John Seo, Co-Founder & Managing Director at Fermat Capital Management; Chair of the Advisory Committee on Risk-Sharing Mechanisms (ACRSM) and Member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance (FACI), U.S. Department of the Treasury
- Marcie Zlotnik, Board Member, NRG Energy; formerly Board Member, Just Energy and Crius Energy Trust; and Co-Founder, COO and Board Chairman, StarTex Power
ElectronX corporate board members include Evan Caron, Philip Krim, David Silbert, Sam Smith-Eppsteiner and Sam Tegel.
About ElectronX
ElectronX is the electricity exchange for the energy transition, providing power market participants with innovative trading products to manage price risk against short-term volatility. With offices in Chicago and New York, ElectronX is building the U.S.-regulated financial infrastructure necessary to support increased investment in clean energy development. For more information, please visit www.electronx.com.
About Innovation Endeavors
Innovation Endeavors is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in cutting-edge technologies to drive generational change in order to solve problems that matter. The firm’s central investment thesis, the Super Evolution, combines data, computational capacity, and advanced engineering to transform a range of industries including engineering health, climate, computing infrastructure, intelligent software, the physical economy, and more. Its investments include Afresh, AlphaSense, Atom Computing, Color, Gatik, Eikon Therapeutics, Fabric, Homelight, Kong, Formlabs, Panther, Planet, Replica, SoFi, Uber, Upstart, Vicarious Surgical, and more. For more information, visit www.InnovationEndeavors.com.
SOURCE ElectronX
