Vivas Kumar stood center stage in the grand ballroom of the Hilton San Francisco Union Square last week. Six investors — three on either side of him — were there to judge him, his pitch deck and his first startup, Mitra Chem Inc.
The Mountain View-based company was one of 10 finalists — and the only one from the Bay Area — in the Startup World Cup, an annual, day-long conference organized by San Jose venture firm Pegasus Ventures. Kumar fell short of winning the top prize of a $1 million investment.
The loss isn’t something that’s going to change the company’s mission of “wanting to solve climate change,” Kumar said. With California aiming to lower its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in the next six years, Kumar said the company wants to help be a part of that change by making batteries more efficient for electric vehicles (EV).
Batteries rely on two types of electrodes for an electric charge. One is a cathode, which is the positive electrode, while the anode is the negative electrode. Generally, cathodes are made from nickel and cobalt, but some companies are developing iron-based cathodes, which Kumar said last longer and can be cheaper for automakers in the long run.
Mitra Chem — founded in 2021 and has the former SPAC King and Social Capital founder Chamath Palihapitiya on the company’s board of directors — is one of those companies behind iron-based cathodes, more specifically lithium manganese iron phosphate cathodes. It is developing the cathodes to be compatible with electric vehicle architecture in the long term.
“(The company) just saw that the growth opportunity was so immense in our own backyard,” he said. “That’s the reason why we chose to focus on the U.S. as our first market. Once we prove it over here that we can go international.”
Kumar — who got a degree in electrical and computer engineering at Rice University and an MBA from Stanford University — said Mitra Chem’s mission was driven by the fact his parents pushed him to work in “greener pastures” figuratively and literally, even though they worked for big oil and gas companies.
Kumar went on to be a global lead negotiator for Tesla Inc.’s battery supply chain unit. He also became an adviser at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a provider of data and advisory services in lithium ion battery and EV supply chains.
When announcing Mitra Chem’s latest funding round in August, the company also landed a strategic partnership with General Motors, the largest U.S. automotive maker. It’s a move Kumar said will help bring electric vehicles across the country.
“They’ve put real money in the ground to build EV battery cells, EV battery cell factories and EV factories as well. We’re just proud to be working with them and being part of the part of the complex supply chain,” he said.
Two years ago, GM committed to build a global battery supply chain, pledging to invest $35 billion on electric vehicles and battery plants through 2025. GM has already committed $13.5 billion to four different U.S. battery factories, which collectively aim to produce 165 gigawatt-hours by 2026.
Though the car manufacturer has been making moves in the EV world, it’s struggling to assure investors. But Kumar said GM’s issues said won’t impact 56-employee Mitra Chem.
“The short term sort of daily fluctuations of news don’t take away from the multiple long-term commitments that they’ve already made towards electrification,” Kumar said.
Since its founding, Mitra Chem has raised $80 million in funding and was last valued by investors at $160 million, according to PitchBook Data. Its backers, in addition to GM, include Social Capital, Boutique Venture Partners and ATEL Capital Group.
“We are in a building that was formerly occupied by Google,” Kumar said. “And 30 years from now, I’d like (Mitra Chem) to do to climate what Google did to informatics.”
