Dear Anzu Partners community,

As we begin the month of May, I’m pleased to highlight a company with a mission to transform the way humans and AI-powered robotics interact with our physical world: GelSight. GelSight has accomplished several noteworthy milestones in recent months that we are thrilled to share with you.

First, GelSight has launched GelSight Mobile 3.2, incorporating AI into its digital tactile platform with this latest software update. More than just a trendy mashup with AI, GelSight’s vision-based tactile sensor generates image data that is well-suited to leverage existing machine learning-based workflows. Several of GelSight’s customers are already building applications that utilize this AI feature to replace human visual characterization of perceived part quality. Additionally, GelSight is expanding the boundaries of what is achievable with tactile technology, putting them ahead of portable surface roughness testers from companies like Mitutoyo or Keyence. GelSight customers, like MTU Aero Engines, are publicly recognizing what we and the company have known all along – that there is tremendous value to putting next-generation metrology tools into the hands of line inspectors in industrial sectors like aerospace. 

Second, GelSight had a high-profile win at Hexagon’s Sixth Sense competition, dedicated to showcasing key innovations that address the digital transformation of manufacturing (you can catch GelSight’s winning pitch here). Along with bragging rights, GelSight is receiving Hexagon's in-kind support to develop and scale a new set of metrology products based on GelSight technology incorporated into Hexagon’s metrology platforms. Hexagon’s expertise and enthusiasm have caught the attention of key players in the industry, and we are excited to showcase the collaboration at Hexagon’s Global Innovation Summit (HxGN Live Global 2023), where a joint demonstration of the technology will take place.

Recently, the GelSight Mini was recognized by the Robotics Business Review as a Top 50 Innovation in 2023 for its compact design, affordability, and plug-and-play setup that helps to lower the bar for robo-tactile application development. For more on this topic and a window into possible future robotic applications that utilize digital touch, we encourage you to watch MIT Professor Ted Adelson’s (co-founder of GelSight) recent TedXMIT talk titled “Giving Robots the Sense of Touch”.  

Lastly, GelSight just launched its new premium digital mobile metrology device, the GelSight Max. GelSight Max allows users to capture high resolution 2D images and 3D digital surface maps in milliseconds. These surface maps enable analysis functions such as surface features, profile, and roughness down to the submicron level, regardless of the material being measured. 

We invite you to learn more about this pioneering company and their groundbreaking products and solutions.

Best Regards, 

John Ho, Partner

PORTFOLIO COMPANY UPDATES

BioSkryb Genomics Unveiled New Research Findings Related to Breast Cancer Tumor Evolution

BioSkryb Genomics, a pioneer in comprehensive single-cell multiomic research solutions, shared new, groundbreaking research related to single-cell analysis of breast cancer biopsies and the expansion of its ResolveDNA® product line at the AACR 2023 Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

At AACR, BioSkryb presented compelling new data on the benefits of ResolveOME in understanding the evolution of breast cancer in a way that has not been seen before. The two poster presentations reviewed over a dozen ductal cell carcinoma biopsies, surveying the impact of multiomic analysis at the single-cell level in nearly 1000 cells, and demonstrating how it enables copy number, structural variation, fusion detection, allele-specific expression, and standard variant identification.

BioSkryb also presented the first data ever released on its high-throughput ResolveDNA that allows researchers to comprehensively analyze thousands of single-cell genomes per day. The discussion displayed the newly developed high-throughput, automated process with a low volume reaction using the latest ResolveDNA 2.5-hour chemistry, delivering >99% precision and >80% sensitivity with low rates of chimeric DNA formulation.

XGS Energy Appoints Energy Industry Veteran Josh Prueher as CEO

XGS Energy, a leader in geothermal energy technology, has appointed Josh Prueher as its new CEO. Josh brings a wealth of experience in scaling early-stage energy technology companies. His expertise in leading companies from technology development to commercialization will accelerate the deployment of XGS geothermal energy technology globally.

Josh is an experienced CEO with a proven track record in product development, strategy, and commercialization for early-stage energy companies. He most recently served as the Founder and Chief Financial Officer of Broad Reach Power, a leading U.S. energy storage infrastructure, technology, and power trading company. In this role, he successfully raised and deployed over $840 million in equity and debt financing from multiple sources such as Apollo Global Management and EnCap Investments. Prior to founding Broad Reach Power, Josh founded FlexGen Power Systems, an energy storage and power conversion software technology company. As CEO, he successfully developed, prototyped, and validated its core technology in the military battlefield market, launched a $200 million, multi-year defense acquisition, and sold its U.S. Government contracting business in 2015.

The announcement was covered by ThinkGeoEnergy. 

NUBURU Selected by U.S. Department of Defense for Position on Contract and Received Patents for Blue Laser Welding and Multi-kilowatt Blue Lasers

NUBURU, a leading innovator in high-power and high-brightness industrial blue laser technology, has been selected by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for a position on the multiple award Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract for the fabrication and delivery of prototypes and equipment in support of solid-state high energy laser (HEL) weapon systems.

As one of seven companies selected, NUBURU is eligible to participate in the firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, multiple award contract with a maximum ceiling of $75 million. The other selected companies include divisions of Rolls-Royce, General Atomics, Dynetics, II-VI, Lockheed Martin, and nLIGHT.

NUBURU also announced that it has received additional patents that expand its intellectual property portfolio, broadly covering blue lasers for use in welding and other applications.

Blue lasers offer the ideal solution for the customer: a non-contact strategy, with a successful, repeatable, high-speed solution which is ten to a hundred times faster than the original approach. Now, combined with scanners, the NUBURU BL launched in January, further increases customer value with faster speed, more precise welding geometries and improved cost of ownership.

 AM Batteries (AMB) and Amperex Technology Limited (ATL) to Jointly Develop Solvent-Free Electrode Manufacturing Technology for Li-Ion Batteries 

AM Batteries (AMB), a pioneer in lithium-ion dry-electrode technology, and Amperex Technology Limited (ATL), a world leading innovator in lithium-ion battery production, have teamed up to develop solvent-free electrode manufacturing technology for Li-ion cell production. The joint endeavor seeks to tackle some of the most critical challenges facing the Li-ion battery production industry: heavy carbon footprint, energy consumption, and high infrastructure cost derived from the current standard solvent evaporation process used for electrode fabrication. Leveraging key expertise in dry-electrode fabrication, which AMB developed, and the world-class commercial-scale battery-manufacturing team at ATL, both groups will work together to change the industry as a whole – both in terms of cost and environmental impact.

The news was covered by several publications, including Forbes, Battery Industry, and Green Car Congress.

 EnCharge AI Appointed Industry Leader Ram Rangarajan as Senior Vice President, Product and Strategy  

EnCharge AI, the company developing advanced AI accelerators for deployments across Edge-Cloud, announced Ram Rangarajan as its Senior Vice President, Product and Strategy. In this role, Ram will work alongside the EnCharge leadership team to advance the company to its next phase of growth and bring its revolutionary in-memory compute-based AI solutions to market, unlocking unprecedented capabilities for large scale automation.

Ram joins EnCharge with over 25 years of technology and leadership experience, along with a proven track record of bringing products and solutions to market. During his time working in Silicon Valley, Ram built and led diverse, global teams to define products, forge partnerships, develop ecosystems, and commercially deploy solutions at scale to drive transformational growth. Most recently, Ram served as the General Manager of Edge AI Products & Systems at Intel, where he developed and deployed advanced vision and AI products to enable solutions for connected intelligence and autonomous experiences.

The news was covered by The Fast Mode.

NTx Expanded its Commercial and Operational Teams to Accelerate Growth

NTx (Nature’s Toolbox), a life sciences company enabling novel pharmaceutical RNA and protein development and production, announced the expansion of its team with the appointments of Sheila Moran as Chief Commercial Officer, Phillip Easton, Ph.D. as Vice President of IT Infrastructure and Operations, and Lily Pisani as Senior Director of Customer Excellence.

Sheila Moran, CCO, brings over 30 years of sales and business development experience in the healthcare and life sciences industries to Nature’s Toolbox. She most recently served as the Senior Vice President of Solution Sales at Sema4, where she led and directed sales, customer, and clinical support activities, including the establishment of commercial sales operations for the company’s genomic testing and data business.

Lily Pisani, Sr. Director of Customer Excellence, will oversee NTx’s sales and marketing strategies. She also comes to Nature’s Toolbox from Sema4, where she began as a Marketing Manager specializing in events. She worked her way up to the role of REI Regional Business Director, NY and NJ for the company’s women’s health portfolio, successfully maintaining and growing the second largest sales number in the country across all divisions.

Phillip Easton, Ph.D., VP of IT Infrastructure and Operations, brings over 30 years of IT services and business development leadership experience to help implement NTx’s IT strategy and operations. He most recently served as the Head of IT Services at Sema4, where he developed and implemented a company-wide IT strategy to support on-site and remote users and lab pipelines.

 e-Zinc Appointed Three Clean Tech Leaders as C-Level Executives to Charge the Next Phase of Growth

e-Zinc, the company enabling sustainable, long-duration energy storage with its zinc-air battery, announced the expansion of its senior leadership team with the appointments of Zakiul (Zaki) Kabir as Chief Technology Officer, Rob Howard as Chief Operating Officer, and Balakrishnan (Balki) Iyer as Chief Commercial Officer and Executive Lead of U.S. Expansion. Additionally, Pieter de Koning was promoted from Vice President to Senior Vice President of Engineering.

Zaki Kabir, CTO brings over 25 years of experience as a senior executive to e-Zinc from his time as CTO of ClearEdge Power, COO at RF Biocidics, and CTO of SiEngery Systems. Zaki has previously developed, commercialized, and reconfigured complex products and services across various industries, including electrochemistry, energy conversion, clean energy, aerospace, and food science.

Rob Howard, COO joins e-Zinc with over 25 years of experience in executive leadership and spent the last 15 years of his career launching operations for new cutting-edge technologies in the energy and consumer electronics sector. Rob served as both COO and CEO at HiQ Solar, as well as Senior Director of Global Manufacturing at Enphase.

Balki Iyer, CCO and Executive Lead of U.S. Expansion is a seasoned energy industry management professional with rich experience and a proven track record of driving growth for global conglomerates such as General Electric (GE) and other energy startups. Balki has successfully steered three startups from inception to exit and helped list one of them on NASDAQ. He was recently CCO of Eos Energy, a zinc-based stationary energy storage company, and prior to that he was the Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer of Utopus Insights, a New York-based global renewable energy analytics company, acquired by Vestas.

Pieter de Koning, SVP of Engineering joined e-Zinc in 2019 as its sixth employee to lead product development. Since then, he has built and led the engineering team to deliver e-Zinc’s first field deployment.

 Xendee Appointed Former Saft Go Electric CEO and President Lisa Laughner to Board of Advisor 

Xendee, a leading DER and EV charging infrastructure design and operation software provider, announced that Lisa Laughner has joined its board of advisors.

Lisa served as the President and CEO of Go Electric Inc, (acquired by Saft, a company of Total) in mission-critical microgrid systems and cyber-secure control technologies for uninterruptible power delivery. Before Go Electric, Lisa served as Vice President at Rolls Royce. She developed a world-class technology commercialization and venture spin-out process, incubated 28 projects, and launched companies in Biometrics, RFID Logistics, Project Management Software, Patient Health Monitoring, and Video Game industries.

 InterVenn Biosciences Presented Clinical Data on Circulating Serum Glycoproteins for Unprecedented Pre-Cancer Detection as “Poster of Distinction” at Digestive Disease Week 2023 

InterVenn Biosciences, the life science company pioneering glycoproteomics, announced new clinical data that demonstrates the power of InterVenn’s proprietary bio marker discovery platform, GlycoVision™, to detect advanced adenomas (AA) and colorectal cancer (CRC). The data was presented as a “Poster of Distinction” at the 2023 Digestive Disease Week Conference (DDW), held May 6-9, in Chicago, IL.

The abstract, “Warning signs from the crypt: circulating aberrant glycosylation signatures correlate with advanced adenoma and colorectal cancer,” highlighted pre-cancer sensitivity via the assessment of circulating serum glycoproteins and has been selected as a “Poster of Distinction” by the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA) Institute Council, among the top 10 percent of abstracts submitted.

Details on the poster presentation can be found in the press release.

ADDITIONAL PC MEDIA COVERAGE

• Niron Magnetics was  was featured in a WIRED Magazine article on Tesla and rare earth free motors.
• GelSight was featured in an MIT News article on a robotic hand that can identify objects with just one grasp. The article was syndicated across several other engineering trade publications. 
• AM Batteries CEO Yan Wang was featured in a Worcester Business Journal story about EV battery recycling.
  
• XGS Energy COO Ghazal Izadi spoke with ThinkGeoEnergy about their technology and recent funding round. 
• e-Zinc CCO Balki Iyer spoke with Energy Storage News about its planned project with Toyota Tsusho.
  
• Xendee co-founder and CTO Michael Stadler was interviewed by the San Diego Business Journal for a piece on EV charging, and by Easy Engineering for a feature on its software platform. 

ANZU UPDATES

Welcome to Anzu!

Lindsay Southwick, Digital Marketing Director

Lindsay Southwick has joined the Anzu MarCom team as a Digital Marketing Director with broad experience in paid social, paid search, organic search, content marketing, digital strategy, and demand generation. He has spent 5+ years at marketing agencies and another 5+ years in-house at software companies. He can do the strategy deck, the reporting deck, and everything else in between. 

Lee Nisson, Associate General Counsel

Lee Nisson has joined as the Associate General Counsel of Anzu Partners and works on a variety of matters for the firm and Anzu’s portfolio companies. Lee is formally based at Innovators Legal, where he will also work with select portfolio companies. 

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Anzu Partners and our portfolio companies are hiring

Browse the open roles here and learn more about joining our amazing teams.

FOLLOW US

To stay up to date on the latest news from both Anzu and our portfolio companies, follow us on social media.

ABOUT ANZU PARTNERS

Anzu Partners is an investment firm that focuses on industrial and life science technology companies with the potential to transform their industries. Anzu works with entrepreneurs to develop and commercialize technological innovations by providing capital alongside deep expertise in business development, market positioning, IP, global connectivity, and operations. For more information, please visit https://anzupartners. com/.