Liminal: $35M for Battery QA + Ultrasound & Machine Learning

Liminal combines ultrasound and AI to improve battery quality in manufacturing, turning a late-night YouTube spark into a $35M tech venture with multi-source revenue.Liminal uses ultrasound and machine learning to create a new way to inspect battery manufacturing, elevate cell quality, and improve cost and safety. They’ve raised over $35M from investors such as our friends at ArcTern Ventures, EIF, and Northvolt, as well as the federal government, including ARPA-E and NSF.Andrew brings a PhD and post-doc work at Princeton University to the creation of this venture. He’s also an Active Fellow and Board member, as well as a skilled photographer. In this episode, you’ll learn these four important takeaways and much more.How they sell to customers (it’s not what you think)How they generate revenue from three sources of valueHow a random Youtube video about bouncing batteries led to the creation of this technologyHow he reads the late-night scribbles on the notepad by his bed each morning🔗 PODCAST SHOW LINKS:Liminal - https://www.liminalinsights.com Andrew - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-hsieh Acquired (podcast) - https://www.acquired.fm 📈 JOIN EFI’S CLIMATE CEO PEER GROUP:Become an EFI Climate CEO Fellow — Join North America’s top private peer group community for growth-stage CEOs in climate tech and sustainability. We’re a community of 80+ CEO Fellows, Alumni Allies, and Mentors (investors and post-exit CEOs) representing over $20B of market value or financial assets for climate solutions. Apply here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.entrepreneursforimpact.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📣 READ EFI’S NEWSLETTER:Join over 20,000 entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators who get our three-minute read about changing the world through startups, finance, humor, and wisdom. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠✍🏼 LEAVE A PODCAST REVIEW:To help more people discover the climate tech CEOs and investors we interview, please take one minute to review or rate this podcast. Since we don’t take any sponsors for this podcast, we appreciate this small gesture of your appreciation. Here are instructions: ⁠⁠⁠https://ratethispodcast.com/guides/where-can-people-leave-podcast-reviews⁠⁠⁠🤔 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).