Just over a 12 months after being changed as CEO of the battery startup Our Next Energy (ONE), Mujeeb Ijaz is again on the helm. Alongside this information, the corporate introduced the shut of a brand new funding spherical led by Crescent Ventures and Trousdale Ventures.
ONE didn’t launch any particulars in regards to the spherical’s dimension, nor did it reply to a request for remark by the point of publication.
As for the management shakeup, Ijaz first stepped apart in December 2023, taking the title of CTO, after the startup struggled to boost a Series C. He was then changed as CEO by board member Paul Humphries. Ijaz had recruited Humphries to the management function, probably attributable to Humphries’ expertise at Flex, a contract producer.
The Series C fell by means of after Just Climate pulled out of main the spherical with a $100 million funding, Bloomberg reported in December 2023.
At the time, ONE was dealing with a money crunch. The firm had raised a large $300 million in a Series B that valued the corporate at $1.2 billion post-money, however it was in the midst of constructing a $1.6 billion LFP battery manufacturing unit in Michigan.
To shore up funds, it ended up shedding 128 workers, round 25% of its employees.
With its contemporary funding, ONE is as soon as once more biking its management with Ijaz now changing Humphries. Ijaz’s brother, Mansoor, chairman of Crescent Ventures, may also be a part of the board.
Ijaz began ONE in 2020 after stints at Apple and Ford.
The startup shortly made a splash after retrofitting a Tesla Model S with its dual-chemistry battery pack, known as Gemini, enabling the sedan to journey 752 miles on a single cost.
The dual-chemistry pack allowed ONE to make use of LFP, a sturdy, low-cost chemistry, to deal with day by day driving duties. When it was depleted, the pack’s circuitry would then start to attract on reserve cells made with a manganese-based chemistry. The supplies in manganese cathodes are ample and cheap, however they are typically much less sturdy. For rare use, although, they present promise.
Despite additionally being examined in a BMW iX, ONE’s Gemini pack design has but to be adopted by a significant automaker. However, BMW was an early investor in ONE.
