One of the ETF industry’s founding fathers established a new beachhead in the American market last week with a war chest for potential deals.

London-based Source launched its first US exchange-traded fund with iShares pioneer Lee Kranefuss as its executive chairman. Kranefuss ran the iShares ETF business for Barclays Global Investors, the platform that lifted ETFs from the realm of the arcane to one of the fastest-growing corners of Wall Street. He left iShares after BGI was bought by BlackRock in 2009.