PrivateMarkets Fundraising

3 Mar 2008 07:01

Amphion Innovations PLC03 March 2008 Amphion's New Partner Company, PrivateMarkets Inc., Completes $3.75 million Series A Financing London and New York, 3 March 2008 - Amphion Innovations plc (LSE: AMP) thedeveloper of medical and technology businesses, today announces that one of itsPartner Companies, PrivateMarkets Inc. (formally Energy Trading International),the leading provider of electronic trading services for bilateral structuredtransactions, has raised $3.75 million in a Series A financing at $1.00 pershare. Amphion now owns approximately 28 per cent of the issued voting sharecapital on a fully diluted basis. Following this fundraising, PrivateMarkets isnow valued at $14.6 million post new money. PrivateMarkets is one of Amphion's new Partner Companies. A spinout of AmphionPartner Company, FireStar Software, PrivateMarkets has introduced the first andonly service for the bilateral, structured trading of energy commodities.PrivateMarkets brings the power of an electronic trading platform to thosesegments of the market that otherwise find no acceptable alternative to voicetrading via phone, email, FAX, or IM. The company creates a unique VirtualPrivate MarketTM that is ideal for the special physical hedging and tradingneeds of non-retail consumers of energy commodities including industrials,wholesalers, municipal utilities, and investor owned utilities. PrivateMarketshas licensed the FireStar EdgeNodeTM technology as a basis for their tradingplatform. PrivateMarkets is initially marketing its product to the electricity and gasmarkets in the US, but plans to expand its operations to other commodity marketsin the US, as well as globally. In the US alone, the total addressable marketfor the company is well in excess of $1 billion per year. Chris Sanders, Chief Executive Officer of PrivateMarkets said, "We are veryexcited about the reaction of the marketplace to our product thus far. Thisround of financing will allow us to expand and strengthen the sales andmarketing infrastructure we need to leverage the very significant marketopportunity for our product." The company has recently completed a customer pilot of the service in the Texaspower market and it recently announced the production launch of its service.PrivateMarkets plans to focus initially on the Texas power market and then toexpand to include both power and natural gas for Texas and other regions acrossthe US prior to expansion internationally. Richard C.E. Morgan, Chief Executive Officer of Amphion said, "Electronictrading has created tremendous value for the companies that enable that trading,as well as in the markets themselves. PrivateMarkets has focused on a portion ofthe multi-trillion dollar global market for the trading of commodities whereexisting electronic trading platforms are simply not an effective option. We areexcited to add PrivateMarkets to our family of Partner Companies and lookforward to being able to report even further developments in the future." For further information please contact: Amphion Innovations plcCharlie Morgan+1 212 210 6224 Cardew GroupTim Robertson/ Jamie Milton/ Matthew Law+44 020 7930 0777 Charles Stanley Securities, Nominated AdvisorMark Taylor/ Freddy Crossley+44 020 7149 6000 About Amphion Innovations plc: Amphion (LSE: AMP) builds shareholder value in high growth companies in themedical and technology sectors, by using a focused, hands-on company buildingapproach, based on decades of experience in both the US and UK. Amphion has significant shareholding in 10 Partner Companies developing proventechnologies targeting substantial commercial marketplaces, each in excess of $1billion. Each Partner Company is chosen with the goal of achieving an exitvaluation in excess of $100 million. On the web: www.amphionplc.com About PrivateMarkets Inc.: PrivateMarkets, Inc. is the leading provider of bilateral electronic structuredtransaction solutions for energy commodities. PrivateMarketsTM brings the powerof an electronic trading platform to those segments of the market that otherwisefind no acceptable alternative to voice trading via phone, email, FAX, or IM.Its unique, patent-pending Virtual Private MarketTM allows traders toelectronically create a private marketplace of known counterparties andstructure each trade to match their specific needs. Unlike exchanges,PrivateMarkets does not impose business conditions on existing counterpartybilateral contractual relationships. PrivateMarkets is a private company backedby Amphion Innovations plc, a publicly-held company (LSE: AMP) that creates,operates and finances life science and technology companies in partnership withcorporations, governments, universities and entrepreneurs. The Company wasfounded in 2007 as Energy Trading International, and changed is name toPrivateMarkets in early 2008 to better reflect the nature of its product andmarkets. On the web: www.privatemarkets.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange