Led · Seed · Oct 2025

Electroflow is building a three-step, fully electric system that extracts lithium from subterranean brines and converts it directly into lithium-iron-phosphate powder for battery manufacturers. The company’s proprietary cell design absorbs lithium ions in one pass and releases them into a carbonate solution in the next, eliminating several traditional refining steps. Prototype testing on brines from a California geothermal site validated the chemistry, and a Version-1 unit due by year-end targets production costs of about $5,000 per metric ton of LFP. At commercial scale, management projects costs below $2,500 per ton—roughly 40% cheaper than current Chinese suppliers—while fitting the equipment inside a 20-foot shipping container capable of producing 100 tons of material annually. The process consumes minimal electricity (roughly equal to a single U.S. household for 50 tons of output) and largely recycles its water. By leveraging abundant domestic brines, Electroflow aims to lower electric-vehicle battery prices by up to 20% and build a U.S. supply chain independent of Chinese incumbents. The company is led by co-founders Eric McShane (CEO) and Evan Gardner, both veterans of battery-materials research.

Participated · Equity · Aug 2025

Copper, led by CEO Sam Calisch, is a Berkeley, CA-based appliances company focused on improving electrification. Its first product is a battery-equipped induction stove that plugs into a regular 120V outlet. The stove enables cooks to upgrade from gas to induction without costly, complex electrical upgrades. The company raised $28M in funding. Copper intends to use the funds to continue to scale its technology platform into additional products. The round was led by Prelude Ventures and included participation from Building Ventures, Voyager, Collaborative Fund, Climactic, Designer Fund, Necessary Ventures, Leap Forward Ventures and Climate Capital. Channing St. Copper’s core product is an Energy Storage Enabled (ESE) induction stove that embeds a modest battery into the appliance to deliver high-performance induction cooking on a normal (120V) outlet, avoiding 240V wiring. The stove includes load-shifting capabilities designed to work with power utilities and to create a network of energy-storage-enabled appliances that plug into standard outlets. Embedding batteries into appliances is intended to eliminate permitting, wiring complexity, and labor costs associated with whole-home battery installs, and to lower the installed cost and installation barriers compared with systems like the Tesla Powerwall. The company positions the product as a fast, cheap pathway to retire gas ranges (the article cites 45 million gas ranges in use) and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while improving public health and safety. Channing St. Copper plans to expand its offering toward whole-home electrification with a suite of ESE appliances including hot water heaters, mini-split/heat-pump air conditioners, and clothes dryers. The LinkedIn post congratulates Eric Wilhelm, Sam Calisch, and the Channing St. Copper team for the milestone.

Led · Equity · Jul 2024

Mitti Labs combines SAR satellite imagery, proprietary field datasets, and AI to create digital twins of individual rice fields that monitor crop conditions, water use, and methane emissions. Since launching its first programs in 2023, the startup grew from working with about 8,000 farmers in its first season to more than 100,000 in the following season and now employs over 150 people. Mitti Labs generates revenue from carbon credits and its GeoAI platform and counts customers such as carbon marketplace Cool Effect, rice producer Ebro Foods, and Syngenta. The company says its programs enable farmers to cut water use by about 40% and reduce methane emissions by more than 50% without affecting yields while creating additional income through carbon credits. With the new funding, Mitti Labs plans to expand into the Philippines later in the year and to Indonesia and other Southeast Asian markets in 2027 to serve compliance carbon markets and broaden its data generation across different ecosystems.

Participated · Series A · Jul 2022

Uplevel provides an engineering insights solution that leverages machine learning and organizational science to champion behavior change through insights, coaching and actions integrated into users' daily workflows. The product draws on data from calendars, code repositories, project management tools, messaging apps and engagement surveys to generate alerts and recommendations. Software engineers and managers receive insights and alerts embedded in their regular tools and workflows based on best practices and that data. The company intends to use the new funding to expand operations and its business reach. Uplevel is led by CEO Joe Levy and CTO Nimrod Vered. The company is based in Seattle, WA. Uplevel analyzes daily data from messaging tools (Slack), collaboration tools (Jira), calendar tools (Office 365) and code repositories (GitHub) to give engineering teams a holistic view and actionable insights. The product combines machine learning with organizational-science frameworks to surface signals that help teams work more effectively. The company was incubated within Madrona Venture Labs and is led by co‑founders Joe Levy (CEO) and Ravs Kaur (CTO). Uplevel has a 16-person full‑time team and is actively hiring for product management, engineering and data science roles. To date ten companies, including Avalara, RedVentures and D2iQ, have implemented Uplevel. The company launched with a $7.5M seed financing to support product development and go‑to‑market efforts.

Participated · Series B · May 2022

Talos offers a unified platform that connects institutional investors to exchanges, OTC desks, prime brokers, lenders and custodians for liquidity sourcing, price discovery, trading, settlement and portfolio management. Its software-as-a-service tools are engineered to meet institutional requirements for performance, safety and reliability across front-, middle- and back-office workflows. Over the past two years the company has roughly doubled both revenue and its client base annually, underscoring accelerating institutional adoption. Talos has widened its capabilities through the acquisitions of Coin Metrics, Cloudwall, Skolem and D3X Systems, adding data, risk management, DeFi infrastructure and portfolio engineering functionality. Looking ahead, the firm plans to broaden its product set from portfolio construction and risk management to treasury and settlement, and to support traditional asset classes as they migrate onto digital rails. Headquartered in New York, Talos positions itself as the foundational infrastructure layer for the next generation of financial markets.