Founder of battery startup Our Next Energy returns as CEO following new funding

Just over a year after being replaced as CEO of the battery startup Our Next Energy (ONE), Mujeeb Ijaz is back at the helm. Alongside this news, the company announced the close of a new funding round led by Crescent Ventures and Trousdale Ventures.

ONE did not release any details about the round’s size, nor did it reply to a request for comment by the time of publication.

As for the leadership shakeup, Ijaz first stepped aside in December 2023, taking the title of CTO, after the startup struggled to raise a Series C. He was then replaced as CEO by board member Paul Humphries. Ijaz had recruited Humphries to the leadership role, likely due to Humphries’ experience at Flex, a contract manufacturer.

The Series C fell through after Just Climate pulled out of leading the round with a $100 million investment, Bloomberg reported in December 2023.

At the time, ONE was facing a cash crunch. The company had raised a massive $300 million in a Series B that valued the company at $1.2 billion post-money, but it was in the middle of building a $1.6 billion LFP battery factory in Michigan.

To shore up finances, it ended up laying off 128 employees, around 25% of its staff.

With its fresh funding, ONE is once again cycling its leadership with Ijaz now replacing Humphries. Ijaz’s brother, Mansoor, chairman of Crescent Ventures, will also join the board.

Ijaz started ONE in 2020 after stints at Apple and Ford.

The startup quickly made a splash after retrofitting a Tesla Model S with its dual-chemistry battery pack, called Gemini, enabling the sedan to travel 752 miles on a single charge.

The dual-chemistry pack allowed ONE to use LFP, a durable, low-cost chemistry, to handle daily driving duties. When it was depleted, the pack’s circuitry would then begin to draw on reserve cells made with a manganese-based chemistry. The materials in manganese cathodes are abundant and inexpensive, but they tend to be less durable. For infrequent use, though, they show promise.

Despite also being tested in a BMW iX, ONE’s Gemini pack design has yet to be adopted by a major automaker. However, BMW was an early investor in ONE.