When Urvashi Barooah applied to MBA programs in 2015, she focused her applications around her dream of becoming a venture capitalist.
She got rejected from every school, and was told she was being unrealistic about her prospects in the venture industry, but she didn’t let that deter her.
She landed a spot at Wharton and said she catered all of her classes and extra cirriculars around learning everything she could about the venture industry.
While growing up with entrepreneur parents didn’t introduce Barooah to venture capital, she thinks her upbringing makes her a better VC.
“I started my journey in venture four years ago and knew nothing,” Barooah said.
Brendan Smith didn’t intend to be in the critical minerals business.
But Smith and Grossman’s company, SiTration, has a different proposal: use its equipment to treat the wastewater and harvest more minerals in the process.
To turn the wafers into filters, Smith and Grossman tweaked an existing chemical treatment to etch minute pores in them.
For a larger mining site, the company would use about as much silicon as a medium-size solar farm, Smith said.
Although SiTration is starting with mining waste, including a pilot project with Rio Tinto, it’s also pitching its filtration systems to battery recyclers and metal refiners.
Moonlight is a free online tarot platform, where you can draw tarot cards on your own, do a reading in a multiplayer room or even book a session with a vetted tarot professional (that’s where the SaaS part comes in).
It was at one of these lessons that Baskin first imagined what an online tarot platform could look like.
As she was building out the idea for Moonlight, Baskin teamed up with Caroline Hermans, a game designer and former UX engineer at Google.
“I was worried that investors might think I’m a prankster — will that hurt me in actually making a business?
We’re all using technology, and I think they’re excited that someone’s making a platform who’s a tarot person, too.”
French spinout Diamfab, founded in 2019, is one example.
They also raised an €8.7 million round of funding from Asterion Ventures, Bpifrance’s French Tech Seed fund, Kreaxi, Better Angle, Hello Tomorrow and Grenoble Alpes Métropole.
But diamond wafers could also be leveraged for nuclear batteries, space tech and quantum computing, too.
While there’s warranted hype around AI in Paris, Grenoble may be the closest to a French Silicon Valley.
Now Diamfab hopes it can play a part, too, and unleash the full potential of diamond in semiconductors.
Sila, Group14, Envoix, and Amprius are all trying to commercialize their silicon anode technology, hoping to cash in on consumers’ desire for ever more EV range.
Ionobell, a seed stage startup, is hoping to be at the top of that list, claiming its silicon material will be cheaper than the established competition.
Both established companies impregnate porous graphite structures with silicon; Sila also adds a coating to the particles.
Ionobell’s silicon supply comes from a waste material, Neivert said, which helps keep costs down.
Like other battery materials companies, Ionobell faces a challenging road ahead.
Coreshell, a battery materials startup, revealed a breakthrough this week that could lower the cost of lithium-ion batteries.
Forecasts for cheaper EVs are counting on a steady stream of technological improvements, including better battery materials.
Coreshell’s first product will be a silicon anode paired with a lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) cathode.
Coreshell predicts that its silicon anodes might even give LFP an edge over traditional NMC cells with graphite anodes.
Granted, their silicon anode materials will cost more, but they’ll have the benefit of scale and experience to help bring costs down.
Ask Sophie: What visas could work to come to Silicon Valley for customer discovery?
Sophie Alcorn, attorney, author and founder of Alcorn Immigration Law in Silicon Valley, California, is an award-winning Certified Specialist Attorney in Immigration and Nationality Law by the State Bar Board of Legal Specialization.
But before you do, I recommend you consult a U.S. immigration attorney to devise a strategy for you based on your short-term and long-term goals.
For example, the current filing fee for E, H, L, and O visa petitions is $460.
The USCIS proposal called for increasing the filing fee for E visa petitions to $1,015, H visa petitions to $780, L-1 visa petitions to $1,385, and O visa petitions to $1,055.
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