With Altra, a trader can peruse the entire market on a single computer screen.

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If Altra succeeds in the larger natural gas and electricity markets, revenue will explode.

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Instead of swapping Beanie Babies and baseball cards, Altra's customers trade thousands of gallons of propane and butane at a shot.

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Altra now reaches 1, 500 computer screens, virtually the entire natural-gas-liquids trading community.

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Altra also plans to sell lucrative add-ons such as Bloomberg-style analytical programs.

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It's not the sort of business to capture the public imagination, but Altra has developed something close to cult status among venture capitalists.

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Just last month Altra launched an electricity-trading site, hoping to grab a share of an electronic market now dominated by the Powermatch exchange operated by Bloomberg Financial Markets.

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Altra was developed in 1996 by a former trader, E.

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Altra has a fair amount of company in business-to-business e-brokerage.

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By taking an existing market and shifting it to the Internet, Altra has created a profitable business that is much easier to defend than selling books or compact discs.

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And Altra deals in bulk commodities, not consumer goods.

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Think of Altra as an Ebay for commercial traders.

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So why haven't more people heard about Altra?

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