Ioannis Martinos’ Signal Group’s digital start-ups incubator has sold its first analytics venture, OilX, to energy consultancy Energy Aspects.
Signal Ventures said it has sold the real-time oil supply and demand balance platform OilX to the provider of research, analysis and data across all key energy commodities.
OilX was the first startup accelerated via Signal Ventures, which gives founders and early-stage teams hands-on support through investment, shared back-office services and use of Signal’s technology and data.
After 15 months of development, OilX was released to market in early 2019, Signal said, and attracted further capital from external investors such as Citigroup and GS Caltex and received grants from the European Space Agency.
OilX’s product range covers crude oil, refined products, biofuels and natural gas liquids, providing traders and analysts with market analysis ahead of official data releases and relative to consensus estimates.
Its founder and chief executive, Florian Thaler, previously worked as an oil strategist at Shell, Citigroup and asset management firm Och-Ziff.
Energy Aspects said its purchase of OilX is part of an ambitious growth plan following its 2020 acquisition of Medley Global Advisors, a policy research service for hedge funds, asset managers, banks and investors. It gained strategic investment from Summit Partners in 2022.
Amrita Sen, co-founder and director of research at Energy Aspects, said OilX would allow it to deliver leading energy markets forecasting and insights and an accurate view of market movements as they happen.
Signal Group chief executive Martinos said Signal Ventures’ vision is to generate value and accelerate development for incubated startups.
“OilX is a tremendous success story and we’re looking forward to working with more entrepreneurs who have great ideas and exciting technologies,” he said.
Thaler said the close collaboration, expertise and support from Signal Group had been invaluable.
Energy Aspects was founded in 2012 and is used by more than 500 organisations. It is headquartered in London, with offices in New York, Houston, Singapore, Tokyo and India.
