3D printing has been praised as an alternative to traditional construction. It promises to deliver faster construction times, creative design, and fewer construction errors, all while reducing carbon footprints. New research out of MIT points to a compelling new take on the concept, relying on 3D printed glass blocks shaped like a figure 8 that snap together like Lego.
The team points to glass’ optical properties and its “infinite recyclability” as reasons for turning to the material. “As long as it’s not contaminated, you can recycle glass almost infinitely,” says mechanical engineering assistant professor Kaitlyn Becker.
The team relied on 3D printers designed by Evenline — itself an MIT spinoff.
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Launching a new product is challenging, but doing it in a space dominated by tech giants requires bold innovation, sharp strategy, and the ability to scale quickly. TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 — taking place at Moscone West in San Francisco from October 28-30 — brings together three experts who are doing just that, while simultaneously addressing one of the world’s greatest challenges: climate change.
We’re thrilled to welcome Paul Lambert, founder and CEO of Quilt; Gurinder Nagra, CEO of Furno Materials; and Brigid O’Brien, managing partner at RA Capital Management to the Builder’s Stage lineup at Disrupt 2024. They’ll share the strategies that have allowed them to take on the incumbents.
They will also explore how startups can differentiate themselves, turn legacy players’ weaknesses into competitive advantages, and make the bold decisions necessary to scale in industries that haven’t changed in decades. This panel is a must-see for founders, investors, and senior executives looking to understand how to succeed in highly competitive markets.
Drawing on his experience building successful companies and having assembled a world-class team from Google, Nest, and Tesla, Paul Lambert is now leading the charge at Quilt in developing a design-forward, smart home climate solution. With thousands of homeowners on the waitlist and $33 million in Series A funding, Quilt is on the verge of revolutionizing a market long dominated by fossil-fuel-based systems by making sustainable home heating more intuitive and efficient.
At Furno Materials, Gurinder Nagra is reimagining cement production — one of the world’s most carbon-heavy industries. Leaning into his extensive scientific education from the University of New South Wales and Stanford University, he’s leveraging novel combustion technologies to create energy-efficient, zero-emission cement plants that are modular and compact, setting a new standard for the future of sustainable infrastructure.
Brigid O’Brien at RA Capital Management is committed to driving investments in companies focused on planetary health. With extensive experience in decarbonizing operations at BHP, the world’s largest mining company, O’Brien brings unmatched expertise in scaling technologies that address climate challenges. At BHP Ventures, she spearheaded investments in innovative areas such as biomining, green steel, and sustainable resource extraction, positioning her at the forefront of sustainable industrial transformation.
This panel offers a rare opportunity to learn how to outmaneuver established competitors, scale innovation, and deliver transformative products in legacy industries — all while framing these activities around saving the planet. Secure your seat at Disrupt 2024 today to learn how these visionary leaders are driving the next wave of market disruption.
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Back Market held a press conference on Thursday morning in Paris to talk about upcoming product launches and give an update on the company’s current situation. If you’re not familiar with the French startup it operates a marketplace of refurbished electronics devices — mostly smartphones. It’s attracted a lot of investor cash in recent years but has also been through tougher times.
In 2021, just like many large tech companies, Back Market rode the wave of zero-interest rate policies around the world and raised an enormous amount of money: a $335 million Series D round was followed by another $510 million Series E round mere months later.
After reaching a valuation of $5.7 billion, Back Market realized that the economy was slowing down. It conducted a small round of layoffs in late 2022, telling French newspaper Les Échos it was “the best way to achieve profitability in the coming years”.
Fast forward to Thursday’s press conference and the company was keen to demonstrate its focus is back on product launches and new projects. Back Market said it wants to find new distribution channels and go premium so that more people think about buying a refurbished device instead of a new one.
Over the past 10 years, Back Market hasn’t just captured a decent chunk of the secondhand electronics market, it has expanded the market for refurbished smartphones. The pitch is simple: a refurbished device is cheaper than a new one and it’s also better for the planet. Moreover, when it comes to smartphones, it has become much harder to define why this year’s model is better than last year’s — so why shell out lots of money buying new to get only an incremental upgrade?
The company doesn’t handle smartphones and other electronic devices directly. Instead, it partners with 1,800 companies that repair and resell old devices. So it’s essentially a specialized services marketplace. Since its inception, it’s sold 30 million refurbished devices to 15 million customers.
Most Back Market customers buy devices on its website or through its mobile app. But the company has recognized it’s sometimes constrained by its partners’ inventory. This is why it wants to expand supply and demand with strategic partnerships.
For instance, it’s partnering with Sony for PlayStation consoles. “A lot of people are coming to Back Market to try and purchase their PlayStation,” said co-founder and CEO Thibaud Hug de Larauze. But the issue is that Back Market is constrained when it comes to supplies for this type of device.
While many people think about smartphone trade-ins, most people don’t think about selling their old consoles. “With this partnership with PlayStation by Sony, we are the only partner to trade in every PlayStation within Sony’s website, within the Sony PlayStation store,” he noted.
As a result, people buying a new PlayStation get a discount with trade-ins at checkout and Back Market is no longer out of stock for old PlayStation consoles. This is a good example of what Back Market has in mind for future partnerships.
“This is one of the first [partnerships of this kind] but we really want to bring it everywhere where customers are actually shopping new. We want to get them where they are, in order to get their old tech — in order to serve it to people who want access to refurbished tech,” Hug de Larauze added.
On the smartphone front, trade-ins are already quite popular. However, customers visiting a phone store usually end up buying a new device along with a long-term plan.
Back Market is going to partner with telecom companies so that customers can also get a discount on refurbished devices in exchange for a long-term plan. The first two partners for this are Bouygues Telecom in France and Visible, a subsidiary of Verizon Wireless in the U.S.
Quality remains the main concern when it comes to buying refurbished devices. In addition to allowing returns, the company is constantly tracking the rate of faulty devices on its platform and trying to bring that number down. Back Market now has a defective rate of 4%, meaning that one in every 25 phones doesn’t work as expected in one way or another.
When customers buy a smartphone on Back Market, they can choose between a device in “fair”, “good” or “excellent” condition. The company has now rolled out a new top tier — called “premium”.
The main difference between smartphones with no signs of use and premium refurbished devices is that Back Market certifies that premium devices have been repaired with official parts exclusively.
In addition to this new premium tier, Back Market is working on an app update to turn it into a smartphone companion. You can register your smartphone with your Back Market account to receive tips to keep your device in a good shape for longer. They are also working on gamification features, including badges and rewards.
Similarly, Back Market will make it easier to check the value of your current phone. “You open the Back Market app, you shake your phone and you’ll find out,” chief product officer, Amandine Durr, explained. This feature will launch around Black Friday.
Finally, Back Market is going to use generative AI to make it easier to browse the catalog. It can be hard to compare two smartphone models to understand which one is better for you. In a few months, you’ll be able to select two phones and get an AI-generated summary of how the two models compare.
When thinking about growth potential, instead of focusing on the smartphone industry, Back Market said it draws inspiration from the car industry.
“Nine people out of 10 are purchasing a pre-owned car today,” said Hug de Larauze. “Everything has been created and lined up for that — the availability of spare parts for everyone, you’re not forced to repair your car where you purchased it.”
Similarly, repairability is changing for smartphones and spare parts, starting with the European Union. By June 2025, manufacturers will be forced to sell their spare parts to people and companies who want to fix devices themselves.
The shift to refurbished devices is also already well underway in Europe. “Back Market, is going to be profitable for the first time in Europe in 2024,” said Hug de Larauze. “This is a big milestone for us because when we created the company and until very recently… we had that label that said: ‘OK, this is an impact company.’ Impact means good feelings, but the money is not there.
“Well it’s not the case, it’s actually making money,” he added. Now, let’s see if Back Market can become the go-to destination for refurbished devices in more countries, starting with the U.S.
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Last year, the U.S. designated magnesium as a critical mineral, one of the “electric 18” that are critical for the energy transition. The metal is used in a range of electronics, and it weighs less than aluminum, making it an attractive alternative for automakers.
But like with so many other minerals, China has grown to dominate the market. It’s not because magnesium is scarce — in fact, it’s the eighth most abundant mineral in the Earth’s crust, and it’s the third most abundant dissolved mineral in the world’s oceans. But in the U.S., at least, only one company produces virgin metal, everything else is either imported or recycled from scrap.
“The name of the game really is, can you compete with the 90% production that’s coming out of China today?” said Howard Yuh, co-founder and CEO of Tidal Metals.
Yuh is betting that his startup can. The company, previously known as GreenBlu, had been working on desalination technology when it realized there was more value in the minerals that were left behind.
“At that time, the industry around magnesium was already sort of in shambles in the United States,” he said. Sensing opportunity, in late 2023 the company pivoted to magnesium production and rebranded.
The lightweight metal has the potential to significantly reduce carbon emissions from transportation if it can be produced with minimal pollution. Motorsports fans will note that magnesium is common in race cars, particularly in the wheels, where every pound lost improves acceleration and handling. In passenger vehicles, broader use of magnesium would improve fuel economy, reducing the carbon footprint of fossil fuel vehicles and extending the range of electric vehicles. Some battery companies have begun to explore using the metal to improve energy density.
Magnesium today is largely produced in two ways: by cooking the mineral dolomite and by evaporating salt water, usually in giant open-air ponds, and processing what remains. The former is widely used in China and dominates production; it’s also incredibly polluting, especially when coal is the heat source.
Tidal Metals follows the latter, the evaporative approach, but it eschews the ponds. In its place, it uses what’s known as a temperature-swing vapor pump. Basically, the company uses a material that readily absorbs moisture to evaporate seawater or brines leftover from desalination. The material is similar to the silica gel packets you find tucked in things made overseas, and it sits inside a box that’s exposed to seawater. When the material becomes saturated, Tidal Metals closes the box and raises the temperature, releasing the water.
Meanwhile, another material-filled box opens to continue evaporating the seawater. Once that box is saturated, Tidal Metals uses heat pumps to move the heat from the first box, which is now drier, to the second, saturated box. Apart from the initial heat needed to warm the first box, Yuh said the process is very efficient. “We’ve basically recycled about 97% of the energy.”
In the end, the startup will have evaporated a metric ton of seawater to produce about 4 kilograms of the magnesium salt.
Once the water is evaporated, some H2O molecules are still bound to the magnesium chloride. Those need to go, too. Yuh wouldn’t disclose details, but he said the company has tweaked an existing process to make it easier.
Tidal Metals is working on a pilot plant that can produce 200 tons per year. Funding for the project comes from a recent $8.5 million seed round led by DCVC with participation from Bidra Innovation Ventures and First Spark Ventures. Once the engineering on that plant is sorted, Yuh said the startup is aiming for a larger-scale facility that can produce 10,000 tons per year, possibly as early as 2026.
Altogether, Tidal Metals’ process promises to be significantly less polluting than what’s done in China, particularly if renewable electricity is used to power the heat pumps. Plus, because the company can use seawater and briny waste from desalination plants, the resource is nearly unlimited, unlike magnesium that comes from mined dolomite.
“The one desalination plant in San Diego pumps in 100 million gallons of seawater a day. That’s enough to supply all of the U.S. with magnesium — 180,000 tons a year,” Yuh said. “Today, it’s all going to waste.”
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When Elon Musk published Tesla’s first “master plan” in 2006, it seemed a bit far-fetched that batteries would end up changing the automotive industry, much less global power production and consumption. Today, as electric vehicles continue to gain market share and massive batteries displace smoke-spewing power plants from the electrical grid, that notion seems less improbable. This year in the U.S. alone, developers are planning to add 15 gigawatts of grid-scale battery capacity.
Yet Michael Spencer thinks that the shift that’s occurring in places like the U.S., Europe, and China is just the beginning. “The Tesla master plan has more legs and more room to run with lower hurdles in emerging markets,” he told TechCrunch.
To prove the point, Spencer, a Tesla alumnus, founded Zeno in 2022. The startup, which until now has operated in stealth, has been methodically exploring how batteries might transform life in emerging markets, beginning in East Africa. The company has attracted considerable talent, including Swaroop Bhushan, who helped design Lucid’s powertrain; Rob Newberry, who helped oversee development of Apple’s AirPort and Apple TV; and others from Gogoro, Tesla and more. Zeno’s first product is a motorbike with a swappable battery.
But in Spencer’s vision, that’s just the start. Swappable batteries won’t just be powering motorbikes in Africa, but other parts of their lives as well.
Motorbike taxis, known as bodaboda, are ubiquitous in East African cities, helping people navigate choking gridlock for far less money than a taxi or personal car. For drivers, though, the costs can be astronomical. Motorbike taxi drivers spend a disproportionate amount of their income on fuel, about 50% compared with a few percent for commuters in California, Spencer points out.
Taking a cue from Taiwanese-startup Gogoro, which helped pioneer the battery swap concept in scooters, entrepreneurs throughout Africa put their own spin on it. The bikes are sold with holes in their chassis where drivers plug in rented batteries. When the packs are near empty, drivers can find a nearby location to exchange it for a fully charged one. As a result, swap stations from startups like Ampersand Solar, Arc Ride, Roam, Spiro, and Zembo have sprouted like grass after a monsoon rain.
Zeno is the latest entrant to the field. The company started by testing around 40 Chinese-made electric motorbikes in various models in Kenya to see how they’d fare. It only took a couple months before the bikes were trashed — they simply weren’t designed for taxi duty on East Africa’s harsh roads — but Spencer said the experience validated his thesis. It also turned up something else.
“There were lots of questions around, like, ‘Why can’t I use this battery for other things?’” Spencer recalled. “We saw some people trying to hack batteries when the power went out, to try to run the lights or to run the flour mill in their shop.”
The Zeno team knew they’d need more durable, heavier bikes that could carry a driver, a passenger or two, and possibly some cargo. It’s working with a manufacturer in India to produce bikes to its specifications, and soon after that model launches, additional manufacturers will release their own two-, three-, and light four-wheel vehicles that will be compatible with the startup’s batteries, Spencer said.
Bigger bikes demand more power, which means they need bigger batteries. Zeno’s lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery packs store 2 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and its motorbike will accept two packs. That will give the bike slightly more range than most taxi drivers need in a day, Spencer said.
The extra capacity “opens up all these other doors.” Spencer and his colleagues started building docks so people could use the motorbike’s spare power to charge phones and run various appliances.
“We prototyped an induction cook stove that ran off of our swappable motorcycle battery and got a pretty cool little microcosm,” Spencer said.
Motorbike taxi drivers could drive home after a day of work, hook their batteries up to the stove to cook dinner and then breakfast the next morning. At that point they would have 10 to 15% charge left, which is enough to drive back to town to swap for a full battery at a self-service station. Every part of the system will have internet connectivity so the company can monitor the batteries, anticipate demand, and facilitate financing. The bikes use a Type 6 connector so that drivers can plug into public chargers during a lunch break, for example, or charge overnight at home if the need arises. The company is also building a charging network that will be available to non-Zeno drivers.
Zeno’s first motorbikes will hit roads in East Africa and India in early 2025. Customers will have to buy or lease the vehicle, which will cost less than a new gasoline-powered model when configured without a battery. The startup will lease the batteries under a subscription model (though people can also buy the battery outright if they choose). Customers can add energy to the subscription bundle or buy it separately on a pay-per-use model. Zeno’s goal is to undercut gas-powered bikes with the upfront cost of a bike and initial battery subscription. And because the power costs of electric motorbikes are about half that of a gas model’s fuel bill, Spencer said the savings improve over time.
Shortly after the bike launches, the company plans to release its home battery dock with an available solar panels, which Spencer hopes will open new markets.
“If you don’t have grid connectivity, you can bring your batteries home from a swap station, and you can use them to power your home. If you want to put solar on your house, that home docking station works as a solar inverter to charge those batteries. So you can be a Zeno battery subscriber for a decade and never swap batteries.”
To fund its launch and expansion, the company recently raised an oversubscribed $9.5 million seed round led by Lowercarbon Capital and Toyota Ventures with participation from 4DX Ventures, Active Impact, Advantedge, MCJ, and RedBlue.
Zeno’s playbook certainly has echoes of Tesla’s, offering customers electrified transportation with a lower cost of ownership. But by focusing on a portable battery, Zeno is selling the ability to use energy whenever, something more akin to how people use fossil fuels today. The motorbike is a central part of the sales pitch, but the battery might be the real selling point.
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Industrial heat, which is used by companies as diverse as breweries and food processors to chemical manufacturers and paper mills, is one of the last bastions of fossil fuels. After all, it’s pretty hard to beat a flame when you need to heat something up.
But recently, a slew of startups have started exploring ways to make heat using electricity. Some, like Rondo, Antora, and Fourth Power, rely on cheap wind and solar to heat specialized bricks to thousands of degrees, storing the thermal energy for later use. Others, like Skyven Technologies, have developed industrial-scale heat pumps that use a series of compressors to achieve the desired temperature.
Heat pumps are particularly suited to supplying the not-quite-searing heat used by food and beverage manufacturers. New Belgium Brewing, for example, agreed last year to install a 650-kilowatt heat pump boiler from AtmosZero at its Colorado headquarters.
That’s exactly the sort of installation targeted by Karman Industries, a heat pump startup which until now had operated in stealth. To replace industrial boilers, the company draws inspiration from SpaceX’s rockets, co-founder and CEO David Tearse told TechCrunch.
“On the technology side, what we’re building is much more akin to a Raptor engine in terms of speed, pressure, and temperature,” he said.
Like other heat pumps, Karman uses compressors to transfer heat. But unlike the refrigerator in your kitchen, which uses a more prosaic compressor, Karman will use turbomachinery to get the job done.
Turbomachinery, which can spin at incredible speeds, is widely used in rockets to pump fuel. Turbomachinery isn’t yet common in heat pumps, though another startup, Evari, is developing one for use in homes and electric vehicles.
Inside a heat pump, the turbomachinery’s speed helps minimize the device’s footprint, moving the same amount of heat as typical compressors, but in a smaller package. Karman’s largest compressor will fit in a frame up to eight feet long and six feet in diameter. Smaller models will be about four to five feet long and two to three feet in diameter. None of them will require oil, a necessity for most other heat pumps, which simplifies the design and maintenance.
Heat pumps can typically only “lift” the temperature so much. So to get to the sorts of temperatures required by industrial users, even those needing only low-grade heat — up to 150 degrees Celsius — heat pump manufacturers generally string a series of compressors together, each lifting the heat a portion of the total. Each additional compressor adds cost and complexity.
“Compared to other systems that are out there, to do the same amount of lift that would take them about five or six stages, we can do in one or two,” Tearse said.
Karman already has some experience in industrial heat courtesy of co-founder and CTO Chiranjeev (CJ) Kalra, who was formerly head of technology at Antora and vice president of power generation at Heliogen. Tearse previously worked at aviation startup Skyryse and Riot Ventures, where Karman was incubated. Riot led a $4 million pre-seed investment in Karman with participation from Space VC, the company exclusively told TechCrunch.
Though it’s still early for the company, Tearse said that he’s confident that the company’s first model, Thermal01, will be cost competitive with natural gas in certain regions and for certain processes. He anticipates a pilot will be ready to install on a customer site in the first half of 2026.
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