In Part I we looked at Suena, Entrix, Enspired, and ESFORIN. The aim was to understand how they line up with the distinctions we’ve been developing: pipelines versus platforms, aggregators versus orchestrators, and so on.
Compare & Contrast I prompted a lot of feedback. In the comments, one reader (thank you, dear energy transitioner) suggested adding terralayr and FlexPower to the analysis. Excellent idea to develop the series further, developing contrast for a better view. And we’re letting ‘it’ run again, no opinions our own.
Terralayr speaks the language of technology: API, clouds, virtualisation, and says it aims to be the AWS of grid-scale storage. FlexPower speaks the language of trading — risk, contracts, liquidity. Both are now developing their own assets. More angles to explore.
Let’s develop our framework a bit as well. In Part I we worked from Marshall Van Alstyne’s definition of platforms and we contrasted this with Ben Thompson’s “aggregators,” businesses that control demand and commoditise supply. We also considered the so-called “smiling curve” as a way of mapping things out.
Let’s add two additional perspectives:
Baldwin & Woodard: platforms succeed when they expose modular interfaces that independent complements can plug into.
Annabelle Gawer: platforms are meta-organisations, coordinating independent actors under shared rules without full ownership.
When companies call themselves platforms, or are called that by others, we can ask: are their interfaces open, their governance multi-sided, their data accessible?
terralayr — tech-led virtualisation
terralayr, headquartered in Zug with a Berlin office, presents itself as the “AWS of energy.” Just as AWS abstracted servers into cloud services, terralayr wants to abstract storage assets into a flexibility cloud.
The ambition is backed by funding and execution. In October 2024, terralayr raised €77 million in equity and debt, with investors including Creandum, Earlybird, Norrsken VC, Picus Capital, and RIVE Private Investment (Silicon Canals, Norrsken VC). Their first asset, trlyr1, began operations in May 2023 and, according to Picus Capital, generated “significant revenues” while serving as an internal testbed.
In 2025 terralayr announced two landmark deals:
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