Mater-AI raises £1.5M to turn waste heat into electricity with AI-discovered materials

UK based AI materials startup Mater-AI has raised £1.5M in a pre-seed round led by Twin Path Ventures with participation from Mishcon de Reya, One Planet Capital, XTX Ventures, the Conception X Angel Syndicate, Koro Capital and Tailored Solutions.

Over 70% of global energy, worth over $152 billion annually, is lost as waste heat, from data centres to heavy industry. Yet the last major breakthrough in thermoelectric materials happened in the 1950s with bismuth telluride, the semiconductor used in everyday technologies like heated car seats and portable coolers.

Mater-AI has developed a new platform for the discovery of more efficient thermoelectric materials that can turn heat into electricity or provide cooling without refrigerants. It combines AI and physics-based modelling to accelerate design from decades to weeks, faster than traditional R&D, optimising for properties like thermal and electrical conductivity to achieve higher efficiency, lower cost and scalable production.

The company is initially targeting thermoelectric generators for defence, automotive and industrial IoT applications, where improved performance could unlock £3.4-to-4.6 billion in new market value. The technology could enable silent, solid-state power sources for next-generation defence systems, extend battery lifetimes, and enable self-powered industrial sensors for continuous monitoring of machinery and remote infrastructure.

Founded by Dr Nickel Blankevoort (CEO), Gatleen Bhambra (COO) and Chelsea Williams (CTO), Mater-AI builds on research conducted by Dr Blankevoort at the University of Warwick in theoretical modelling of quantum nanoelectronics and thermoelectrics. During his PhD, he discovered three new material structures in a year through traditional methods. Mater-AI's platform now generates and evaluates 100 structures every hour.

“Imagine data centres generating their own power from waste heat, electric vehicles that travel further by recapturing their thermal energy, infrastructure that never needs batteries, ” Gatleen Bhambra, CEO and co-founder of Mater-AI, says. “Our platform finds new materials in weeks instead of years, bringing us closer to a world with a fundamentally different energy architecture – where everything powers itself.” 

"Mater AI is addressing a fundamental bottleneck in the energy transition: the discovery of next-generation thermoelectric materials. Their AI discovery engine has the potential to unlock entirely new applications such as harvesting 'waste' heat in extreme environments like powering sensors, vehicles, and defence infrastructure. We believe this is a truly foundational technology that will accelerate the path to a sustainable and efficient energy future." Nick Slater, Partner at Twin Path Ventures.

"Mater-AI represents exactly the kind of disruptive, high-potential business we look to champion. OnePlanetCapital is delighted to confirm this investment, and we are supremely confident in their ability to execute on their ambitious plans. We are happy to be supporting them as they scale their technology and accelerate their market penetration." - Ed Stevens, Investment Director and Co-Founder at OnePlanetCapital

"Mater-AI has turned decades-old limitations in materials discovery into an opportunity for systems-level change. We're entering an era where the materials we build with are no longer determined by what we stumbled upon in the last century, but by what we can computationally design for the world we need. That future is closer than most people realise, and this team is building it." Riam Kanso, Conception X Angel Syndicate Lead.

Mater-AI has established partnerships with Cambridge University, Imperial College London and the Henry Royce Institute to validate its materials in the lab and scale towards commercial applications. The funding will accelerate R&D and team growth.

Mater-AI were also the first winners of the Green Construction Award at the Sustainable Times RISE Awards this year.

To find out more about the categories and the winners, click here:

Click Me

Photo Credits: All images included in the press pack must be credited to Ruffled Media.