Lisle-based Aquilon Energy Services raised a $19 million Series B from Citi, Goldman Sachs, Invenergy and Macquarie Group. The company’s cloud-based platform allows energy buyers and sellers to smoothly complete transactions.
The Series B investors are all also customers, using the company’s software to buy and sell electricity and natural gas without the huge spreadsheets it once took.
Aquilon designed the Energy Settlement Network to handle constantly changing energy prices, especially in cases dealing with flexible renewable energy. As sunlight levels and wind speeds change, renewables are able to handle more of the load, changing the prices on a minute-by-minute basis. All those changes lead to a lot of data to sift through.
"The companies investing in our firm have large trading and settlement operations and realized how we can automate settlement processes, strengthen financial controls, enhance risk management and improve efficiency," said founder and CEO Jeffrey Wagner in a statement. “This round of financing will allow us to not only grow our Energy Settlement Network, but also enhance features and functionality for settlements with independent system operators as well as transactions involving power, natural gas, crude oil and refined products."
The company told Crain’s that about 100 customers are using the platform today. The company employs 32 people at offices in Chicagoland and Houston, the latter of which is where much of the nation’s energy trading is carried out. Crain’s reports that they hope to grow that to 50 by the end of the year, with 30 in the Chicago area alone.
This is the latest in a flurry of funding that started just after the new year. Aquilon’s funding was announced the same day as Chicago unicorn Uptake’s $40 million funding, which propelled it to a $2 billion valuation.
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