Cuberg- Next generation Lithium metal battery technology for the electric mobility industry

Lab to Startup

Richard Wang, Ph.D., is the Founder and CEO of Cuberg, a startup building the world’s first aviation-certified lithium metal battery pack. Robert is also the CEO at Northvolt America, which acquired Cuberg in 2021. We talk about the current challenges around battery innovation and solutions that are being worked on followed by Richard’s journey from being a PhD student at Stanford where he also picked up his startup education; the technology behind the lithium metal battery they developed; lessons learned from customer discovery exercise; and also from Validation of battery performance claims by the Department of Energy; the reason for going after aerospace industry; stories about his fundraising journey; and finally about being acquired by Northvolt. Shownotes: - https://cuberg.net - Challenges in the battery industry on the technology innovation aspect - Overview of technologies being developed to address the challenges - Thought process behind launching Cuberg - Influence of Peter Thiel's class (Zero to One) and Stanford Ignite - Cyclotron road - Lithium metal anode technology (Cuberg) - Validation of battery performance claims by the Department of Energy - Team, early hires, cultural fit, and lessons learned - Blog on hiring https://www.carbonlighthouse.com/hire - Incubators/accelerators considered, and why Richard picked Cyclotron Road - Grant funding - VCs are probably not a good fit for battery technology startups - Lessons learned from grant submissions - Granting agencies: https://www.afwerx.af.mil, https://calseed.fund, https://www.energy.ca.gov/funding-opportunities - Interactions with VCs - Strategic investors - Customer discovery process and how they ended up in aerospace industry - Lessons learnt from pursuing the wrong early adopters- lessons learnt from NSF ICorps - Acquisition by Northvolt - Careers at Cuberg: https://cuberg.net/careers