GM Invests in Silicon Valley-Based AI and Battery Materials Innovator Mitra Chem

General Motors is leading a $60 million Series B financing round in Mitra Chem, a Silicon Valley-based, AI-enabled battery materials innovator. The company’s AI-powered platform and advanced research and development facility in Mountain View, California, will help accelerate GM’s commercialisation of affordable electric vehicle batteries.

The R&D facility can simulate, synthesise and test thousands of cathode designs monthly, ranging in size from grams to kilograms.

These processes drive significantly shortened learning cycles, enabling shorter time to market for new battery cell formulas.

GM and Mitra Chem will develop advanced iron-based cathode active materials (CAM), like lithium manganese iron phosphate (LMFP), to power affordable and accessible EV batteries compatible with GM’s EV propulsion architecture, the Ultium Platform.

GM’s funding will help Mitra Chem to scale its current operations and to expedite their novel battery materials formulation to market.

Mitra Chem is building the first North American lithium-ion battery materials product company that shortens the lab-to-production timeline by over 90%

Gil Golan, GM vice president, Technology Acceleration and Commercialization, says: “This is a strategic investment that will further help reinforce GM’s efforts in EV batteries, accelerate our work on affordable battery chemistries like LMFP and support our efforts to build a U.S.-focused battery supply chain. GM is accelerating larger investments in critical subdomains of battery technology, like cell chemistry, components and advanced cell production processes. Mitra Chem’s labs, methods and talent will fit well with our own R&D team’s work.”

Mitra Chem CEO and Co-Founder, Vivas Kumar, adds: “GM’s investment in Mitra Chem will not only help us develop affordable battery chemistries for use in GM vehicles, but also will fuel our mission to develop, deploy and commercialize U.S. made, iron-based cathode materials that can power EVs, grid-scale electrified energy storage and beyond.”

GM's Ultium battery platform everything from mass-market to high-performance electric vehicles.