Careers at Genscape

Mission

Genscape thrives on increasing transparency across global commodity and energy markets.

History

It is said that the most successful companies create their own markets. This is what two power traders did when they launched Genscape in 1999. Frustrated by the level of transparency available in the power trading market, Sean O’Leary and Sterling Lapinski wanted to create new technologies that would expand access to high quality data for more market participants than ever before.

With the help of John Carroll Hill, an electrical engineering professor in Kentucky, Lapinski and O'Leary built a device that can tell how much electricity is moving through a power transmission line and which direction by using electric and magnetic fields. The new company used this technology became a pioneer in market intelligence by providing real-time power plant output and transmission information to support the decision-making of energy traders, power plant owners and operators, regulators and other participants in this market.

The company’s uniqueness was derived from their use of sophisticated patented technologies and proprietary algorithms, which collect data and provide real-time intelligence to the global commodity and energy markets. From 2000 to 2010, Genscape heavily invested in research and development, leading to it being awarded 65 patents. In 2006, Genscape was sold to a British conglomerate, Daily Mail and Genera Trust, for just under $200 million. Federal contracting disclosures show that the company had annual revenues of $1.7 million in 2003, $18 million in 2007, $29 million in 2010 and $50 million in 2013.

Today, Genscape operates the world’s largest network of in-field monitors, including satellite reconnaissance, artificial intelligence and maritime freight tracking. In 2011, Matthew Burkley joined the firm as its new CEO, replacing O’Leary. Major investors in the company include, WellAware, which brought in $16 million in its B funding round in 2015. The company and its employees are dispersed in offices all over the world, in cities such as Zurich, London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Boston, Houston and Calgary.