Apr 30, 2025 · 42m · the-pitch
Will VCs Back 3D-Printed Conformal Batteries?
Gabe Elias · 19m spoken Paige Finn Doherty · 6m spoken Josh Muccio · 3m spoken Will Wiseman · 3m spoken Mark Phillips · 2m spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Former Formula One engineer Gabe Elias pitches Material, a startup manufacturing 3D-printed conformal batteries, to a panel of venture capitalists on The Pitch. Although investors praise his elite engineering background and proprietary nanomaterials, concerns over low projected gross margins and capital intensity lead to passes and a debate over pivoting the business model.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Josh holds 10.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Josh as informed peer 4.8 Guest teaching 4.7 Guest disagreement 1.8 Josh pushing back 3.8
speaking balance: gold is Josh, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 35:10 Paige and Gabe clash over commodity pricing versus novelty premiums
Paige sharply rejects Gabe's competitive cost-per-kWh benchmark, arguing that customers should pay high novelty premiums for custom shapes, while Gabe pushes back on maintaining market competitiveness.
Hardest push from Josh ▶ 24:57 Paige refuses Gabe's cost-cutting framing over pricing powerPaige explicitly calls out Gabe for focusing on lowering customer assembly costs instead of expanding gross margins, demanding to hear how he plans to charge for the value delivered.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 13:29 Gabe explains in-house nanomaterial synthesis economicsGabe demonstrates deep technical domain expertise by explaining how synthesizing nanomaterials in-house cut costs from $500 per gram to single digits, enabling current collector-free battery architecture.
Josh holds their own ▶ 37:35 Paige calculates a $1M monthly high-margin nanomaterial business modelPaige rapidly computes unit economics from Gabe's numbers, demonstrating that selling raw nanomaterial at 100x margin yields $1M per month and out-earns low-margin battery manufacturing.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Josh as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Josh pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Pitch: Introducing 3D-Printed Conformal Batteries to Investors | 1 | 5 | 3 | 1 | Gabe begins his formal pitch with a provocative hook claiming the investors directly contributed to the energy supply crisis. The panel listens attentively as he outlines the technical limitations of conventional batteries and his F1 background. | |
| Technology Deep-Dive: Manufacturing Agility and Proprietary Nanomaterials | 4 | 6 | 1 | 2 | Gabe demonstrates his prototype for Nimble and explains eliminating current collectors through specialized nanomaterials. The investors probe chemistry agnosticism and manufacturing device integration respectfully. | |
| Motorsport Heritage: Formula One Lessons in Additive Manufacturing | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Mark invites Gabe to detail his motorsport background. Gabe shares how 3D-printing a complex intercooler at Mercedes F1 inspired his hardware philosophy, creating an engaging storytelling dynamic. | |
| Defensibility and Unit Economics: Patents and Nanomaterial Costs | 5 | 6 | 1 | 3 | Will questions Gabe on defensibility, patent protection, and manufacturing costs per kilowatt-hour. Gabe explains bringing nanomaterial synthesis in-house to drop raw material costs by 10x. | |
| Go-to-Market Strategy: Targeting Early Evangelists and Market Demand | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | Gabe outlines targeting mid-tier electronics makers before tech giants, citing Apple's expensive L-shaped battery designs. When asked about gross margins, he reveals a modest 25 to 30 percent target, raising investor concern. | |
| Founder Vision: Transforming Hardware and the Energy Transition | 4 | 4 | 1 | 4 | Will drops out citing brutal battery market competition and thin margins. Mark praises Gabe's leadership culture but passes due to the high capital requirements inherent in hardware scaling. | |
| The Margin Confrontation: Paige Finn Doherty Passes on Material | 7 | 4 | 4 | 8 | Paige directly challenges Gabe on his refusal to capture premium pricing value for complex custom batteries. Gabe focuses on driving overall system costs down rather than raising prices, leading Paige to pass. | |
| Investor Debrief: Balancing Engineering Empathy With Pricing Power | 7 | 1 | 0 | 5 | In the pitch debrief, Josh and the investors analyze Gabe's engineer-first mindset. Paige and Will critique his excessive customer empathy and reluctance to wield pricing power. | |
| Post-Pitch Transition: Setting Up the Founder Follow-Up Call | 8 | 6 | 4 | 8 | On a follow-up call, Paige pushes Gabe to pivot into a high-margin nanomaterials supplier selling at 100x margin. Gabe hesitates, insisting on remaining a full battery manufacturer. |
Statements from this episode (22)
Elias: Energy demand is far outpacing improvements in battery capacity
“Energy demand because of the bets we're all making is far outpacing increases in battery capacity.”
Material's manufacturing platform creates conformal batteries of any size and shape
“Our manufacturing platform creates conformal batteries, any size, any shape, Offering tremendous gains in efficiency and energy density.”
Material is developing a conformal battery for consumer brand Nimble
“What's on the screen is a battery that we're developing for a company called Nimble.”
Elias: Future manufacturing will consolidate sub-assemblies into single machines
“And actually that's way a lot of manufacturing is going to go in the future. We're not just going to be making individual parts and sub assembling them. We're going to be consolidating those processes into singular machines or maybe two or three machines that …”
Elias: Material's battery manufacturing platform is chemistry agnostic
“So we're chemistry agnostic, which is great.”
Material's proprietary nanomaterial blend eliminates the need for current collectors
“So our secret sauce is really our specialized nanomaterial blend that we developed in-house over the last couple years, and what this allows us to do is create batteries without current collectors. That's how we can make these conformable shapes.”
Elias: Competitors won't produce collector-free conformal batteries for a decade
“It's something that's not seen in the industry right now. It is emerging, I would say, in academia, and you might see it from other players in the next decade, but we're first movers because we had so much experience prior to starting this company.”
Elias won seven F1 world championships as an engineer at Mercedes
“So when I started at Mercedes in 2014, I kind of reached the zenith. I was one of two Americans on the team. Living in England, and I won seven world championships in that process.”
Mercedes F1 consolidated thousands of engine intercooler parts into single 3D prints
“And we spent two years working on this project to take a couple thousand parts and consolidate it into a single print.”
Material has built three multi-material 3D printers and printed 150 batteries
“We've created three multi-material, multi-modal, three-D printers. We've printed over a 150 batteries, and we've raised our energy density from initially pretty low levels and testing into now competitive rates.”
Material expects its battery manufacturing costs to reach $85–$90 per kWh
“We expect to be able to manufacture at somewhere around the 85 to 90 dollars per kilowatt hour.”
Elias: Almost every iPhone produced today features an L-shaped battery
“Almost every iPhone that's produced now has an L-shaped battery.”
Material is targeting early-stage gross margins of 25% to 30%
“Well, I guess it depends on the complexity, but, you know, I'm going to be targeting in the 25 to 30% margin, at least at the early stage.”
Elias: Customizing battery nanomaterials incurs negligible cost for Material
“But these are all customizable, and they really don't cost us as a company much of anything to make that change for each customer.”
Elias: True energy transition requires electric to feel identical to petroleum
“And that's a world where you're not even going to really know if you're in, let's say you know, a petroleum powered device or vehicle versus an electric powered vehicle. And that's when the energy transition happens.”
Wiseman: Battery market competition destroys pricing power and gross margins
“I'm concerned about the gross margins at this point. I'd want to see much higher margins, or at least a path that could get me to significantly higher margins, and I just think that speaks to the, unfortunately, the intensity of the competitive dynamics here, …”
Elias: F1 engineering takes conventional automakers four times longer
“The things I was able to do in Formula One would take a conventional auto manufacturer, probably four or five times the amount of time and money for that matter.”
Elias: Chinese oversupply keeps battery prices at unsustainably low levels
“I really think the battery industry specifically is artificially constrained by the oversupply, obviously, that we know from China, and that keeps the prices at a lower level than what's probably sustainable.”
Doherty: Hardware startups should start with high-margin, small product runs
“I think what I've seen in like the higher margin hardware businesses is like you start with a very high margin, smaller run products. So you can build like a very capital efficient business. And then as things get to more scale, then you might lower your margi…”
Material currently produces batteries at $390 per kWh with 20% margins
“We're still able to achieve a 20% margin on batteries at an all-in production cost of 390 dollars per kilowatt hour.”