Exclusive: Jasmine launches energy trading app

Jasmine Energy this morning launched an energy trading app and marketplace that enables retail traders to buy and sell electricity from the couch.

Why it matters: The Y Combinator company tells Axios that its Robinhood-like app can accelerate climate investment by driving casual traders to obscure energy exchanges.

Flashback: Jasmine in September closed a $2.5 million seed round during Y Combinator's twice-annual demo day.

• UpHonest Capital, Cerulean Ventures, GSR, Focal VC, Collaborative Fund, and Climate Capital participated.
• The round was raised at a $22 million valuation, CEO Nathalie Capati said.

Catch up fast: It's impossible to track how individual electrons flow across an electric grid. So companies buy and sell "energy attribute credits" to represent the low-carbon power they're using or generating.

• Trading those credits has become a lucrative if esoteric market.

The latest: Jasmine launched a blockchain-backed app to draw new investors to energy credits markets.

• The app had about 5,000 members pre-launch, including institutional investors and some Fortune 500s, the startup says.
• The idea is to bring liquidity and transparency to a market that's traditionally been opaque and fragmented — much like the country's electric grid itself.

What they're saying: "If we want to replace oil, we need to operate like oil, which means including speculative markets," Capati says.

What's next: The D.C.-based startup is using the capital from its raise to in part connect with various energy credits registries across the country.