SirenOpt®, Inc., an advanced manufacturing intelligence company announced the successful closing of its US $6.6M seed funding round, which was led by Voyager Ventures and TOMORROW (part of Visionaries Club), with participation from Climate Club. SirenOpt’s investors also include Union Labs, Berkeley Skydeck Fund, Wireframe Ventures, Impact Science Ventures, Access Industries, Courtyard Ventures, and Climate Capital.
From semiconductors and batteries to turbine blades and smartphone screens, many products that underpin the modern global economy are produced using advanced coatings, thin films and nano-scale materials. These production processes involve depositing thin layers of material onto a substrate moving up to 100 meters per minute to achieve specific functional and structural properties. Existing technologies provide a limited understanding of these complex processes and materials, which can force manufacturers to rely on trial-and-error as they set-up, optimize, and monitor factory lines. For example, lithium-ion battery manufacturers often scrap up to 40% of their production in the first year of new gigafactory operation, and scrap rates can remain above 5% after several years in operation. This manufacturing variability can result in hundreds of millions of dollars of undesirable manufacturing costs for a single factory and can significantly reduce factory return on investment.
SirenOpt’s manufacturing intelligence platform non-destructively collects critical manufacturing data that is otherwise unobtainable and uses that data to quantify, understand, and mitigate manufacturing variability in real-time. By simultaneously measuring and classifying multiple material properties and performance metrics, such as thickness, density, conductivity, chemical composition and more, along with the collection of vast amounts of underlying electrical, thermal and electrochemical data, SirenOpt provides more detailed and actionable materials information than has ever been possible before. SirenOpt’s solutions leverage proprietary cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) and physics-informed machine learning technologies originally developed by the co-founders at the University of California, Berkeley Chemical Engineering Department.
This advanced intelligence is brand new to manufacturing and can accelerate R&D and process optimization, enhance product performance and deliver higher production quality for both in-line and off-line applications. SirenOpt’s advanced characterization capabilities will enable manufacturers to more effectively develop and manufacture leading-edge materials and products for which there are currently limited characterization options, and to reduce defect and scrap rates.
Jared O’Leary, Co-Founder and CEO of SirenOpt, said, “As manufacturing processes become more complex, performance and yield depend more heavily on quality control, which today often relies on time-consuming, destructive and/or limited measurement technologies. Our platform creates a uniquely distinctive, multifaceted material fingerprint in real time. This enables AI-based decision-making and multi-dimensional quality control to maximize manufacturing performance and yield. Empowering our customers to simultaneously evaluate material quality and improve industrial efficiency is a win-win and will enable a new wave of sustainable and smart manufacturing processes. We are grateful to our internationally positioned investors for sharing our vision and helping enable us to address these important manufacturing challenges on a global scale.”
SirenOpt has successfully deployed multiple systems to customers and collaborators and strengthened its management team with the appointments of John Busch, formerly a VP and GM at Applied Materials, as Chief Operating Officer and James Carrington, an experienced deep-tech startup executive, as VP of Commercialization. The company will use this new investment to accelerate product development, deliver fully commercial products to market, scale up commercial operations, and expand its engineering and application teams.
Sarah Sclarsic, Founding Partner at Voyager Ventures, said “SirenOpt is changing the paradigm on what is possible in advanced manufacturing. By enabling factory operators to measure what was previously unmeasurable, they are unlocking extraordinary production efficiency gains across a range of industries worth more than $100B to the global economy each year. Improving the efficiency of battery production by even 5% would reduce millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2030. We are excited to partner with them to support the company in capturing this multi-billion-dollar revenue opportunity.”
Sebastian Pollok, Founding Partner of TOMORROW, said, “Advanced coatings, thin films, and nano-scale materials have the potential to transform industries toward sustainability, but accelerating their manufacturing ramp-up is crucial. SirenOpt provides a unique technology solution that drives a more efficient, effective, and sustainable way to manufacture materials. This advancement is a climate technology breakthrough, and we are excited to support them on their journey to redefine advanced manufacturing.”
