Venture capitalist Oliver Curme is looking for big things fromAltra Energy Technologies. Last year the company in which he’s apartner, Battery Ventures, bought a majority stake in Altra, whichoffers real-time electronic trading of energy. “I put $10 millionof my company’s money into Altra Energy Technologies,” he toldattendees at Zeus Development’s Interactive Energy conference inHouston earlier this week. “I believe, like many of you do, thatthere’s a gold mine to be made in interactive energy, and I put mymoney where my mouth is. In fact, my neck is really stretched onaccount of my belief to the tune of $10 million. But Altra’s areally great company. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a winner.”

Part of the reason he’s so enthusiastic about Altra is becauseof the industry it’s a player in – energy. Curme said energymarketing is a $2 trillion/year industry whose growth will befueled by deregulation and technology’s impact on communication. “Ithink the Internet. will in fact be the basis for restructuring alot of the energy industry. I’ll even be extreme and say that theInternet will change everything and that all business to businessmarkets are going to be affected by the Internet.”

The Internet brings the cost of communication, between companiesand between companies and their customers down “to a levelapproaching zero.” Energy marketers can more effectively reachlarge numbers of customers – particularly residential customers -through the Internet.

“The potential for the Internet, it’s not just cost savings,it’s also a market presence. Probably a lot of you have terminalson your desks or PCs on your desks. The transaction Web sites arejust always sitting there, right there, right in front of you onyour desk. And they’re a lot easier to get to than picking up thephone or getting in your car.”

He used the on-line book-seller Amazon.com as an example. “Ithink if you look at where within an organization the Internet’sgoing to have the biggest effect on automated business processes,you’ve got to look toward communications and logistics intensiveareas: marketing, sales, fact procurement, distribution.”

©Copyright 1998 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press,Inc.