battery-supply-chain
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Eric Januar
Eric Januar is a co-founder and CEO of BANIQL, a Silicon Valley deep-tech startup reinventing how the world pulls nickel and cobalt out of the ground for electric-vehicle batteries. With 12 years in electronics, battery and semiconductor R&D - including a stint at Merck and a prior startup exit - he helped build BEST (the Baniql Extraction SysTem), a low-temperature, low-pressure process that the company says cuts electricity use by roughly 98 percent and reaches 99.7 percent nickel sulfate purity with net-zero toxic waste. BANIQL closed a US$1.6M seed round in 2024 and completed a 100 kg/month pre-pilot plant by year-end.
Kevin Bush
Kevin Bush is the co-founder and CEO of Molten Industries, an Oakland-based deep tech company using methane pyrolysis to crack natural gas into clean hydrogen and battery-grade synthetic graphite. A Stanford-trained materials scientist who set perovskite solar efficiency records before co-founding Swift Solar, Bush is a Breakthrough Energy Fellow and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree. He started Molten in a Stanford garage in 2021 and raised a $25M Series A in 2024 to build its first modular commercial reactor.
Raef Sully
Raef Sully is the CEO of Lilac Solutions, an Oakland-based company pioneering direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology using ceramic ion exchange beads. A structural engineer turned management consultant turned industrial executive, Sully brings 30+ years spanning tall buildings, the Australian Army Reserve, Bain & Company, and a decade running Nutrien's $10 billion nitrogen and phosphate division. He joined Lilac as COO in mid-2023 and ascended to CEO in February 2024 - the same month the company closed a $145 million Series C. Under his leadership, Lilac has achieved 87% lithium recovery at the Great Salt Lake, unveiled Gen 5 technology with 20x higher production rates, and signed a binding 10-year offtake agreement with Traxys North America targeting 50,000 tonnes of lithium product.