Climate CEOs: Scaling Startups Aether: $49M for Lithium Extraction with ML and Molecular Assembly
Aether uses robotics and machine learning to extract lithium from untapped reserves, aiming to make the U.S. a global lithium powerhouse while scaling with nondilutive funding.
Aether is a molecular assembler platform that can extract lithium from previously inaccessible reserves. It uses robots and machine learning to search among trillions of enzymes for the right fit.
Pavle is a first-time founder and almost college dropout (there’s a story to that!) who’s spent almost seven years building Aether and raising $49M along the way.
In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.
- How he hopes to make the US the lithium capital of the world
- Which revenue models he’s pursuing with mining partners
- How he’ll use nondilutive funding to scale tech deployment
- Why “I don’t know” is a powerful phrase to build trust
🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:
Aether - https://www.aetherbio.com
Pavle - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pavlejeremic
Noahpinions (newsletter) - https://substack.com/@noahpinion
The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World - https://shorturl.at/inj
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🤔 PODCAST HOST:
Dr. Chris Wedding is the founder of EFI (climate CEO peer groups), cofounder of Terraset (carbon removal), Senior Advisor at Javelin Capital (investment banking), Board member at World Tree (regenerative forestry), Board Advisor at DG Matrix (next-gen power electronics), Duke & UNC professor, ex-private equity investor, ex-investment banker, occasional monk, father of three, 2x ax-throwing champ (huh?), Time Magazine Person of the Year in 2006 (Google it), and super humble guy (as evidenced by this long bio).