Hi everyone,

This is Henk Both and Evan Kay, from Anzu’s investment team. We are here to highlight exciting recent developments at a Fund III company: XGS Energy, formerly known as Geothermic Solution (GSL). XGS Energy is a company based in Palo Alto working to provide affordable, carbon-free baseload power from geothermal energy through its proprietary heat harvesting technology. Today, we will provide an overview of XGS’ technology and discuss why geothermal energy is attractive, the current limitations of the industry, and how XGS addresses these limitations.

In many ways, geothermal energy is ideal for utility-scale power generation, especially when considering cost, day-to-day reliability, and environmental impact. Geothermal power can be cost-competitive with any energy generation technology and provides dependability that grid operators need in order to be confident that power will be available when it is needed. It is a dispatchable baseload power source, like gas, coal, and nuclear. This means it provides stability and reliability to an electrical grid because its availability does not depend on weather or time of day, unlike intermittent power sources like wind and solar. Additionally, geothermal energy has among the lowest associated lifecycle emissions of any technology – even wind and solar. 

However, geothermal energy has seen limited deployment globally due to lack of scalability of the technology. Beyond subsurface heat (which is easy to find), successful energy harvesting relies on 1) the availability of water to bring that heat to turbines at the surface, and 2) subsurface fracture networks to flow the water through, in order to collect the heat. Both can introduce uncertainty and financing risk to exploration and production. For example, locations like Hawaii and Japan have plentiful heat but do not allow much geothermal power generation due to the potential environmental impact of chemical contamination. Other locations like California and Nevada have favorable geology and legislative environments but do not have sufficient water resources. XGS Energy’s technology dramatically increases the scalability of geothermal power generation by eliminating these core restrictions. 

XGS’ Thermal Reach Enhancement (TRE) system has two main components: a network of thermally conductive subsurface channels to collect heat and a closed-loop circulation system to transport the heat to the surface. XGS creates these thermally conductive channels by placing highly thermally conductive material developed in-house into the rock, creating heat flow “highways.” Once the heat reaches the wellbore, XGS harvests the heat in a closed-loop system, in which clean water circulates in a fully self-contained set of steel pipes and heat exchangers, never touching the rock directly. This eliminates the risk of water loss or chemical contamination.

Since our investment, XGS has expanded its Board of Directors to include globally recognized topic experts. Four new directors joined the XGS Board:

• Martin Craighead, former Chairman and CEO of Baker Hughes.
• Ray Mabus, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy and former U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. During his eight years as Secretary of the Navy, Secretary Mabus initiated major energy security and sustainability programs for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.
• Khalid Alsweilem, Ph.D., former Chief Counsellor and Director General of Investment at SAMA, the Central Bank of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• David Seldin, Managing Partner at Anzu Partners.

XGS Energy’s recent funding announcement was covered in various publications including Forbes, Fortune, Bay Area Inno, Think GeoEnergy, Climate Tech VC, Renewables Now, and more.

We look forward to sharing additional updates in the coming months!

Sincerely, 

Henk Both, Senior Associate and Evan Kay, Associate

PORTFOLIO COMPANY UPDATES

Niron Magnetics Presented at the 2023
ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit 

Niron Magnetics, the company pioneering the world’s first high-performance, rare earth-free permanent magnets, participated in the 2023 Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) Energy Innovation Summit to showcase its technology and deliver a presentation following Niron’s $17.5M SCALEUP grant from the U.S. DOE’s ARPA-E. 

Niron Magnetics’ CTO Frank Johnson and Senior Director, Strategy and Business Development Tom Grainger presented a Tech Demo at the event on “Pilot Production for Commercial Sampling of Rare-Earth-Free Iron Nitride Permanent Magnets.”

NTx Welcomed Dr. James Coffin as its New CEO

NTx (Nature’s Toolbox), a life sciences company enabling novel pharmaceutical RNA and protein development and production, appointed Jamie Coffin, Ph.D., as its new CEO. Dr. Coffin has over 20 years of leadership experience within the healthcare and life sciences sector. His experience building powerful teams and leading multi-billion-dollar companies in the healthcare technology space will be invaluable as NTx focuses on commercializing its in-vitro products and developing new partnerships.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Coffin led the global, multi-billion-dollar healthcare and life sciences businesses at both Dell and IBM Healthcare. Most recently, he served as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Sema4, a health information company providing advanced genomic testing. During his tenure at Sema4, he grew the company’s revenue from less than $50M to over $200M and built up the team from under 300 to over 1000 people in less than four years.

This news was covered by Becker’s Hospital Review and New Mexico Inno.

NUBURU Appointed Dr. Matthew Philpott
as Chief Marketing and Sales Officer

NUBURU, a leading innovator in high-power and high-brightness industrial blue laser technology, appointed Dr. Matthew Philpott as Chief Marketing and Sales Officer. Dr. Philpott will oversee all aspects of marketing and sales and he will lead the team to further develop NUBURU’s product roadmap and to accelerate market penetration across all segments.

Dr. Philpott brings over 20 years of laser industry experience from Coherent Corp. where he was most recently the Director of Global Business Development. At Coherent, Dr. Philpott led a multinational electric vehicle welding team, taking Coherent from a new entrant to being a globally recognized top supplier for battery and EV production. Dr. Philpott holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Furman University and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Washington.

This news was covered by Photonics.com, Semiconductor Today, and Wiley Industry News.

BioFlyte Appointed Bill Rule as Vice President of
Manufacturing and Triples Corporate Facility Space

BioFlyte, a bioaerosol surveillance firm with a disruptive new class of fieldable biological threat collection, detection, and identification solutions, appointed Bill Rule as Vice President of Manufacturing. In this role on the BioFlyte leadership team, Rule will oversee the development of a dedicated manufacturing function and manage a robust supply chain model as the company scales its commercialization efforts.

Rule has a proven track record of helping startups and small companies scale by implementing successful supply chain and manufacturing processes. Most recently, he served as the Director of Manufacturing and Supply Chain for Everactive, an IoT platform company. For the last several years, Rule has also managed his own supply chain and manufacturing engineering consultancy where he has assisted small to mid-sized companies with projects ranging from international factory stand up and quality control, to new product introduction and prototype production planning.

BioFlyte also announced its move to a new, larger corporate facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico to scale manufacturing and engineering operations to meet increasing global demand for biothreat surveillance technology. Located in Sandia Science and Technology Park, the new 5,300 square-foot-space is a nearly 300% increase in size for BioFlyte. The facility will allow the firm to leverage multiple laboratories and testing environments to support an evolving product set and growing production schedule as the company ramps up its manufacturing program.

Voltaiq Announced Collaboration with PDF
Solutions to Support Intelligent Battery Production 

Voltaiq, a leading software platform for Enterprise Battery Intelligence (EBI), announced its collaboration with PDF Solutions to help battery manufacturers improve yield, reduce cost, and accelerate new factory ramp-ups. This collaboration combines PDF Solutions’ deep product and domain expertise for the analysis and control of semiconductor and electronics manufacturing with Voltaiq’s product and domain expertise in marshaling large-scale data from across the full battery product lifecycle to accelerate and optimize every part of battery development and production.

The Voltaiq and PDF Solutions integrated solution combines Voltaiq’s Enterprise Battery Intelligence™ platform with PDF Solutions’ Exensio® Process Control and Manufacturing Analytics platform to enable customers to fully characterize battery quality earlier in the production process and link those characteristics to key manufacturing parameters for control and improvement. 

The news was covered in several industry publications, including Automotive News, Battery Industry, Automotive Engineering, and Metrology News. 

Aspinity Launched AML100 Application Board with Renesas Quick-Connect IoT Platform Integration at Embedded World 2023 

Aspinity, the leader in analog machine learning processing, announced that it has joined the Renesas Preferred Partners Program and has released its AB2 AML100 Application Board. The board expedites the development of power-constrained always-on AI products that use the AML100 analog machine learning processor and Renesas’ Quick-Connect IoT platform or other development platforms with an Arduino Uno Rev3 connector. 

The near-zero power AML100 analog machine learning processor has been developed using Aspinity’s proprietary analogML™ core and consumes 15µA for sensor interfacing, signal processing, and decision making completely within the analog domain. When programmed with one of Aspinity’s purpose-built event detection algorithms, the AB2 allows system designers to quickly implement the AML100 as a front-end analog event detector that keeps the Renesas MCU in its lowest power state unless the sensor event of interest is detected, and further processing is required. By keeping the MCU in sleep mode for most of the time, the AML100 enables system designers to leverage the features and functionality of their favorite high-performance Renesas MCU without facing a battery life trade off.

The news was covered by Fierce Electronics, Design News, EE News, EE Times, and more.

Xendee Appointed Barry Coflan to its Board of Directors 

Xendee, a leading DER and EV charging infrastructure design and operation software provider, announced that Barry Coflan has joined its board of directors. Barry brings a wealth of strategic business and technical experience to Xendee, having previously served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Schneider Electric’s Smart Buildings Division.

During his tenure at Schneider Electric, Barry managed the Building Energy Control Systems department, and was responsible for leading the integration of multiple strategic acquisitions. Over more than ten years in this position, Barry managed 1,000+ engineers across the U.S., Europe, and Asia and oversaw the installation of the Building Energy Control System in roughly one million large buildings worldwide.

MedCrypt Joined the Microsoft Azure Marketplace to Provide Cryptography Library for Medical Devices

MedCrypt, the proactive cybersecurity solution provider for medical device manufacturers, announced it was selected to participate in Microsoft Azure for Startups, a global program dedicated to accelerating the trajectory of startups through access to a network of technology, mentorship, and business support. As part of its participation, MedCrypt has also announced the launch of its product, Guardian, an embedded library that makes it easy to build cryptography, validate integrity, and keep data private, on the Azure Marketplace.

This collaboration announcement will provide medical device manufacturers with a seamless experience in implementing cryptography in support of those requirements while also furthering MedCrypt’s reach to Microsoft’s existing customer base. With streamlined deployment and management, customers can now take advantage of the scalability and security provided by Azure. MedCrypt’s Guardian meets the needs of software-enabled and connected medical devices with an opportunity to adopt improved security tooling and provides device manufacturers a helpful starting point when building with the Azure Marketplace.

This news was covered by 24x7 Magazine and Read Magazine.

iTel Networks Partnered with Ethica to Bring
Next-Generation Internet Access to Customers

iTel Networks, a leading provider of business internet and telecommunications services, announced its partnership with Ethica, a prominent software-defined networking (SDN) solutions provider. The partnership will bring CloudAccess, Ethica’s flagship SDN service, to iTel’s existing customer base, delivering reliable and secure next-generation internet access.

CloudAccess is designed to simplify network management, optimize network performance, and improve network security, allowing businesses to manage their network infrastructure easily and efficiently. By partnering with Ethica, iTel can offer its customers a comprehensive SDN solution that delivers real-time network visibility, flexibility, and scalability.

ANZU UPDATES

Jimmy Kan, Partner Interviewed for MITRE
Engenuity’s Circuit Talk: Funders and Founders 

Anzu’s Partner Jimmy Kan was recently interviewed by John Cole on MITRE Engenuity's Circuit Talk: Funders and Founders. In the episode, Jimmy shares how Anzu is not just focused on investing in emerging tech, but rather the tech that will define the next generation. He also discusses how much the landscape of deep tech investments, and specifically semiconductors, has changed in the last five years and how he predicts it will continue to change in the future.

ADDITIONAL PC MEDIA COVERAGE

• Niron Magnetics was mentioned in several articles related to Tesla’s plans for rare earth-free electric vehicles from Bloomberg, Quartz, IEEE Spectrum, and Bits & Chips. Niron was also included in a MinneInno article on local Minneapolis startups’ response to the Silicon Valley Bank collapse.
• BioSkryb Genomics was featured in articles from The New York Times and Axios on the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Bioskryb was also highlighted in new UBS Research as one of the major privately held biotech firms they are watching. 
• MedCrypt director Naomi Schwartz spoke with Medtech Dive about designing cybersecurity for diabetes devices. 
• AM Batteries was named in a Reuters article about Tesla using dry electrode coating in its batteries. AM Batteries’ CEO Yan Wang was also recognized by Worchester Business Journal’s 2023 Manufacturing Excellence Awards.
• South 8 Technologies’ co-founder Jungwoo Lee was interviewed by ABC 10 News San Diego about how South 8 is improving electric car batteries.
• NTx’s Alex Koglin was a guest on the Life Science & Biotech CEO Stories podcast to discuss progress that is being made in biomanufacturing and what it may mean for society.
• BioFlyte was mentioned in an article from New Mexico Inno about its move out of The Bioscience Center in Albuquerque. 

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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/.