Synota raises $3 million to bring instant bitcoin settlements to the energy industry
Bitcoin technology company Synota said Tuesday it raised $3 million in seed funding led by Ego Death Capital, a new venture capital firm focused on the bitcoin ecosystem, to provide instant settlements for power generators, distributors and energy consumers worldwide.
Synota was founded in 2022 to address the link between how energy is produced and how payment for that energy is settled. It uses the Bitcoin Lightning Network, a layer on top of the bitcoin blockchain that enables instant settlement of bitcoin payments, to allow fast payments using the peer-to-peer cryptocurrency to synchronize payments with the energy flow.
“The freedom to act is critical to solving the global challenges of energy justice and access,” said Austin Mitchell, co-founder and CEO of Synota. “Anything less condemns future generations to energy poverty – this is why we are passionate about how Synota disrupts energy finance.”
Other investors that participated in Synota’s fundraising included Trammell Venture Partners, Rev1 Ventures, Hivemind VC, Bitcoiner Ventures and Recursive Capital. The company said the new funds will be used to build out the commercialization of Synota’s software and the upcoming launch of a bitcoin mining service.
Using Synota’s software, utilities can integrate directly with the blockchain technology to immediately take advantage of the Bitcoin Lightning Network for instant settlements, which will resolve payment delays. This will enable utilities to handle changing variations in energy consumption at scale more easily and allow for more fine-tuned, smarter processes involved in payment systems.
With payments settled almost instantly, it will also eliminate backlogs in getting paid for energy, which will reduce the overall overhead costs of automating complex energy networks. This, in turn, will reduce the costs of energy delivery.
“Using Synota, back office constraints will no longer limit a company’s ability to settle complex energy transactions,” said Lisa Scott, co-founder and CEO of Synota.
The company intends to launch a pay-as-you-go service for bitcoin miners, hosts and their energy providers who will benefit from the solution early next year. The transaction options provided by Synota include dynamic pricing and simultaneous multi-party settlement. The same software will be generally available to the wider energy industry by 2024.
A few different companies have been working with blockchain technology to disrupt the energy landscape. Examples include PowerLedger, a blockchain-based energy tracking, tracing and trading of renewable energy, while providing energy management solutions for apartments and multi-unit residential buildings using cryptocurrency. There is also Lightency, a French green-tech startup that is building a peer-to-peer blockchain marketplace that allows customers to trade electricity across the grid by distributing energy resources.
