Evan Erickson on Energy Tech Startups

Energy Tech Startups

Dr. Evan M. Erickson is the CEO of TexPower, a company commercializing cobalt-free lithium-ion battery technology that is higher in energy than other technologies without sacrifices to safety, cycle life, or compatibility with existing technologies. Evan has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, working first in fuel cells, then transitioning to lithium-ion battery technology in a postdoc at Bar-Ilan University in Israel & later at the University of Texas at Austin, working for Prof. Arumugam Manthiram. Prof. Manthiram is world-renowned in the battery space, even giving the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry lecture for the invention of lithium-ion batteries for his long-time colleague Prof. John Goodenough.

Evan Explores:

• Why having cobalt-free batteries (and cathodes) is hard and important - 0:45
• How SBIR grant funding programs enabled TexPower to spin out of UT - 2:21
• Why there are only a few places in the world that can develop significant innovation in Cathode Materials - 7:45
• How the founders of TexPower managed technical, market, and funding risk to launch the company - 9:19
• How technical mastery allows for tuning the cathode materials to optimize for safety and performance - 11:48
• Why starting a business while raising a 3-year is hard, but doable with the right partners - 18:03
• How the University of Houston’s Techbridge helped TexPower accelerate its chemistry development - 21:06
• How the IRA will affect battery technology deployment in the US - 24:18
• The challenges facing public transit electrification - 30:30
• How winter freeze Uri in 2021 threw a wrench into Evan’s best grant writing plans - 35:48
• Why innovators just go for it - 41:48

Website: https://texpowerev.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-erickson/