SirenOpt

A Big Picture Problem 🗺️

Small Scale, Big Bottlenecks

The Dilemma

• Current State: As society increases its demand for batteries, semiconductors and modern infrastructure, manufacturers must work at the nanoscale in order to build their products.

• Complications: Working at the nanoscale introduces unique manufacturing challenges, as a variance in just a handful of molecules and atoms is the difference between a material that is useful and a final product that is defective. Many facilities do not have the sensors in place to detect the properties of materials as their manufacturing line is refining, assembling and transforming it for further use, which forces manufacturers to complete dozens or hundreds of processing steps before they test their products for quality controls.

• Consequences: If facilities cannot gain access to more real-time data about materials as they build their products, it will become increasingly difficult to manufacture hardware with enough efficiency and performance. This issue will hinder renewable and AI industries in particular as demand continues to crescendo. Meanwhile, their downstream supply chains will continue to accumulate waste and economic losses due to the inability to optimize nanoscale operational processes.

Searching For A Solution 📡

SirenOpt

The Basics

• Mission: To provide real-time data and intelligence about nanoscale materials in manufacturing production lines.

• Summary: SirenOpt is developing a sensory and software platform to collect data that is often not captured in real-time by facilities handling materials at nanoscales.

• Year Founded: 2022

The Framework

• Solution(s): SirenOpt uses a special type of plasma to detect the thickness, density, conductivity, chemical composition and other properties about a material, and this data is logged and surfaced by its software product. This type of data can help facilities identify nanoscale defects and anomalies in their materials with much higher fidelity, which can ultimately help manufacturers produce better products with less waste.

• Strategy: Focus on solving use cases for specific industry verticals — such as supporting lithium-based battery manufacturers improve quality controls for the graphite, nickel and other electrode materials they use to build solar-powered machines — before expanding the capabilities of its platform.

• Signal: SirenOpt is scheduled to release the first version of its product to two different battery companies later this year and is in the midst of coordinating pilot studies with multiple NASDAQ 100 companies and international groups.

The Team

• Founder(s):

  • Chief Executive Officer - Jared O’Leary. 

    • Previously:

      • Ph.D in Chemical Engineering
        @ UC Berkeley.

  • Chief Science Officer - Ali Mesbah.

    • Previously:

      • Professor of Biomolecular Engineering @ UC Berkeley.

  • Chief Technology Officer - Joel Paulson.

    • Previously:

      • Professor of Biomolecular Engineering @ The Ohio State University.

• Headquarters: Oakland, California, United States

• # Of Employees: 11 - 50

Click the button below to request an introduction to the founder

The Channels

• Socials: LinkedIn.

• Website: https://www.sirenopt.com

• Resources: SirenOpt is currently under Berkeley Lab’s fellowship program, Cyclotron Road, to validate, scale, and fund its product to commercial success.

Risk Alerts ⚠️

The Threats

• Commercial Risk: Industrial sales cycles are often lengthy and rigorous processes because manufacturers build their products in precise ways. These customers heavily vet potential suppliers because they are cautious about the risks to their operations when they change how they design, build and control for product quality, even if they are making small adjustments. Thus, it may be difficult for SirenOpt to establish a footing in the market without first investing months or years to build trust with potential customers and formalize partnership agreements with major ecosystem players.

• Technical Risk: SirenOpt’s sensors need to meet high reliability, accuracy, and durability requirements in conditions that may have fluctuating temperatures, pressure levels, and chemical exposures. Their sensors must also be compatible with a wide range of existing systems, protocols, and standards, which is a lot of complexity to account for, even if they focus on the lithium-based battery vertical to start out.

• Comparable To:

  • Augury.

  • Everactive.

  • Eigen Innovations.

Deal Tracker 🧮

The Cap Table

• Series: Seed.

• Raised: $6.6 million USD.

• Investors: Led by Voyager Ventures and TOMORROW. Participation from Berkeley Skydeck Fund, Union Labs, Climate Capital and others.

Market Insights 💡

The Landscape

• Recent News: Recent developments by BMW, Mercedes-Benz, the auto industry at large and the humanoid robotics market in general is an indication that manufacturers are building an appetite to adopt many emerging technologies in the ‘4^th Industrial Revolution’ and fundamentally reshape how their facilities operate in the years ahead.

• Growth Rates: According to a report from Precedence Research, the industrial sensors market was valued at $25.7 billion USD in 2023, and is expected to grow by 9% over the next decade and reach $60.6 billion by 2033.

• Ecosystem Dynamics: China, Britain, the United States of America and many other countries around the world are creating strategies to independently manufacture critical infrastructure for national security purposes. It is unclear how national policies may change in the years ahead, but these decisions may ultimately be a benefit for SirenOpt’s domestic adoption, and an obstacle for the company's future aspirations to expand internationally.

Industry Trends 📊

The Indicators

• Catalysts: Many industrial manufacturing companies are integrating all sorts of advanced robotics and machine learning technologies into their facilities to decrease product defects and improve quality and efficiency. This trend is a tailwind for SirenOpt because the data they provide can enrich a company’s quality control measures.

• Challenges: Data may still be considered ‘the new oil’ in the 21^st century, but like crude oil, raw data needs to be refined, transformed and contextualized to be a valuable commodity. SirenOpt needs to integrate seamlessly with all kinds of software workflows and hardware processes unique to individual facilities to scale with minimal resistance.

• Recommended Reading: The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by W. David Woods is an exploration of the exceptional craftsmanship and slim margins of error required to design and manufacture many of industrial machines that underpin society.

A Toolkit To Go 🛠️

The Equipment

• 🪨 Altrove - A machine learning-based solution to design and build alternative inorganic materials for manufacturers.

• 🔮 NVIDIA Omniverse - Create virtual replicas of manufacturing processes to simulate and optimize production.

• 🗞️ The Aurorean Newsletter - Our team’s weekly roundup of STEM’s most significant stories of progress. We scour 100+ sources so you don’t have to.

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Share Your Thoughts 💬

The Community Wisdom

The results are in from our poll last week. Astroforge is a company on a mission to mine asteroids and was over our horizon. The following is a snapshot of the sentiments our audience felt about them.

• Bulls 56%

  • Subscriber Perspective: ‘The world’s next space age is well underway and there are more nations participating in the race this time around to expedite global progress. Asteroid mining will create new industries and unlock billions of dollars of economic value. It’s matter of if not when.’

• Bears 44%

  • Subscriber Perspective: ‘If a company ever manages to mine large asteroids they would never flood the commodity markets on Earth with the materials because it undercuts their own market cap value. IMO the most likely outcome is they keep asteroid commodities in space so products can be manufactured outside of Earth, which I can’t imagine will be worth much for another 25-50+ years.’