Answered raw tape
D 5 · C 5 · P 5 · Cm 4 4.85
Q Wow. So in terms of the funding side of Exowatt, how much have you raised to date and who are your investors?
A Yeah, we've been super fortunate to have the best investors back the company. So as I mentioned, we launched it from a venture studio called Atomic. Uh, they initially gave us the pre-seed funding, if you will. And then in 2024, we came out of stealth and we launched our, uh, raise our seed round, which was led by Catherine Boylett, Andreessen, and Sam Altman. Um, and, uh, then, uh, later that year, about six months later, we raised our series A, Um, and that was led by Felicis and, uh, and then AD-N-D and MVP. So in total, we've raised about a hundred and forty million dollars, um, over the last two years, and it's been great. I mean, we've got tons of great investors with, uh, tons of knowledge about the industry and also very deep pockets to help us scale the business. Uh, but if we think about how do we take this to the next level and, and, and how do we deploy multi-gigawatts, uh, scale projects, We'll need even more funding. And so we're going to be, uh, making some announcements on that front very soon as well.
AI assessment note: “in total, we've raised about a hundred and forty million dollars”
Answered raw tape
D 4 · C 4 · P 4 · Cm 3 3.85
Q I love a good dad joke. So what are the, what are the rocks? Like, what type of rocks are they?
A You could use any kind of rocks, so we have developed a specialized rock that can handle the temperature profiles and go through the cycles a lot, but we're maintaining the rocks at about 800 degrees Celsius to a thousand degrees Celsius, so that's, you know, equivalent to about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, and, um, you can use any rocks, riverbed rocks, you could use fancy ceramics, there's, there's nothing That's necessarily, um, uh, secret to what kind of rocks you use. What's, what's really important is how you transfer the heat to it. Make sure that you've done testing to make sure that the rocks don't break over time and they can handle the cycles. And that's a lot of the testing that we've been doing and, uh, have done and developed our material around it. But the most important thing is if you think about the raw materials that we use at the end of the day, it's essentially Sand and dirt and, and steel, right? And so the sand is essentially quartz that's converted to the lenses, to the installation that we use, to even the, um, the rocks, essentially, and, and same with the dirt, and then the steel is just for the enclosures and the engine parts, um, and really nothing fancy about it, and that's really one of the key, uh, uh, value props here is that you can make this domestically using very simple raw materials, And you don't have to go import something from China. Um, and…
AI assessment note: “You could use any kind of rocks, so we have developed a specialized rock”
