Dr. Kang Sun is currently the chief executive officer of Amprius Inc., a high energy density lithium ion battery developer. Kang has over 20 years business creation and management experience in various industries. He has led business at Fortune 500 companies as well as startup ventures. Kang's primary focus in recent years has been cleantech ventures. He was a President and Chief Operating Officer at JA Solar Ltd - a leading solar product manufacturer in China (IPO on NASDAQ in 2007), a founder and Chief Executive Officer of RayTracker - an advanced solar tracking system business (acquired by First Solar), and a founding member and Chief Strategic Officer and Managing Director of cleantech business at Applied Materials. Kang has also served as President of Index Technologies Inc., Vice President of Honeywell, Vice President and General Manager of AlliedSignal, Vice President of Oce Group. Kang Sun received Ph.D. degree in Materials Science from Brown University and B.S. degree in Macromolecular Science from Nanjing University, China

Paul Alivisatos, Professor at U.C. Berkeley

Paul Alivisatos is Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science, and the Larry and Diane Block Professor of Nanotechnology at the University of California, Berkeley. He received Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1981, and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry under the supervision of Charles Harris from the University of California, Berkeley in 1986. He was a postdoctoral fellow with Louis Brus at AT&T bell Labs. He has received the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellowship, the ACS Exxon Solid State Chemistry Fellowship, the Coblentz Award, the Wilson Prize at Harvard, the Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award, the ACS Award in Colloid and Surface Chemistry (2004), the Rank Prize (2006), and the University of Chicago Distinguished Alumni Award (2006). He is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, he was elected into the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the Editor of the American Chemical Society Journal and Nano Letters. He is a senior member of the technical staff at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he has been appointed Associate Laboratory Director for Physical Sciences and where he also serves as Director of the Materials Sciences Division.

Damoder Reddy, Founder and Board Member

Damoder Reddy is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in developing products and business based on novel materials and has extensive expertise in developing high volume printing processes on flexible substrates. Before founding Solexant in 2006, he founded Nuelight in mid 2003 to develop mixed signal ICs for organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays. Prior to founding Nuelight, he served as COO of Opsys Ltd., an Oxford University spin off developing novel OLED devices. He also served as COO of Lite Array, a China based thin film display manufacturer. . He received Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Osmania University (India) and conducted postdoctoral research at University of Denver and Princeton University.

Rami Elkhatib, General Partner, Acero Capital, L.P.

Rami founded Acero Capital in late 2009, and focuses on investments in both IT and Clean Energy. He currently serves on the board of enterprise mobile company Bitzer Mobile and on the boards of solar energy companies Solexant and Banyan Energy. Prior to Acero, Rami was General Partner at Southeast Technology Funds where he focused on IT infrastructure and software investments, and served on the boards of several investments including Pixel Magic (acquired by Dai Nippon), Waveguide Solutions, Elumens Corporation and Arsenal Digital (acquired by IBM).

Prior to venture capital, Rami held multiple roles in tech and finance- he co-founded Datacme Software, held multiple senior management roles at Oneworld Software Solutions, and worked as a technology investment banker at UBS Warburg where he led the execution of several public offerings and M&A deals that in aggregate raised over $800M for high tech companies. Before that, Rami had started his career as a software engineer, developing large-scale software applications (Design Automation Systems; Decision Support Systems) for Global Fortune 20 companies (Toyota, Procter & Gamble).

Rami is a graduate of M.I.T. where he earned an MBA in finance and was named the Henry du Pont III Scholar, and a graduate of Purdue University where he earned a B.S. in Computer and Electrical Engineering. Before going on leave from Stanford University, Rami was also pursuing his M.S. in Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford, where he was a member of Stanford's Honors Coop Program. While at Stanford, Rami's research included investigation of new materials for fuel cell membranes, solar thin film deposition and catalysts for bio-refining of renewable chemicals. At Stanford Rami also contributed to writing the 2nd edition of the leading textbook on fuel cells (Fuel Cell Fundamentals).

Cynthia Ringo, Managing Partner, DBL Investors

Michael Borrus, General Partner, X/Seed Capital is a Board Observer

Michael Borrus is the founding general partner of X/Seed Capital, a seed-focused early stage venture fund focused on breakthrough innovation. Prior to founding X/Seed, he was an Executive in Residence (EIR) at Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV) in Silicon Valley. Prior to joining MDV, he was Managing Director of The Petkevich Group (TPG), a merchant bank providing financial advisory services and investment capital to growth companies in life sciences and technology. He led the technology banking group at Petkevich & Partners, TPG’s broker-dealer subsidiary, executing a variety of financial transactions from M&A and capital raising to spinouts and bankruptcy reorganization. Before TPG, Michael was Adjunct Professor in UC Berkeley's College of Engineering, Co-founder and Co-Director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) at the University of California, Berkeley, and a partner in Industry and Trade Strategies, a business consultancy. Much of his academic and consulting work has focused on how business models need to adjust to successfully commercialize new technologies, to exploit new market opportunities or to adapt to new competitors. He is the author of three books and over 70 chapters, articles and monographs on a variety of topics including management of technology, high technology competition, international trade and investment, and financial strategies for technology companies. He is a frequent speaker before corporate and public audiences, and has appeared in numerous media outlets from CNN and NPR to Business Week and the New York Times. Michael is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, the University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University. He is a member of the California State Bar.

Martin Lagod, Managing Director, Firelake Capital is a Board Observer

Martin Lagod is a managing director and co-founder of Firelake Capital Management LLC. Mr. Lagod is responsible for private company investments. He serves as a member of the board of Miasole, Plextronics, Nano-Tex, and HydroPoint Data Systems. He is an observer on the boards of Pionetics, Sensicore, Solicore, Liquidia, and Nanostellar, all Firelake portfolio companies. From 1997 to 2001, Mr. Lagod worked in the energy technology sector. He was the co-founder and CEO of Solo Energy Corporation, a start up energy technology company that developed microturbine and clean combustion reciprocating engines for the distributed power market. For the previous 19 years, Mr. Lagod was an intellectual property attorney based in Silicon Valley. He was a partner in the Palo Alto office of Phoenix-based Brown and Bain until 1995 and at Cooley Godward LLP in Palo Alto from 1995 to 2001. Mr. Lagod holds a B.A. in Economics (with Honors) from the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and a J.D. from Vanderbilt University. He serves on the Advisory Board for the Center for Sustainable Enterprise at the Kenan Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Ned Renzi, Managing Director, Birchmere Venture Capital is a Board Observer

Ned Renzi joined Birchmere in 2000 and is primarily responsible for cleantech investments. He focuses on engineering driven innovations that create a more sustainable planet and improve the human condition. He is a director of Cvent, Inspired Technologies, and Plextronics and a board observer at Solexant. Ned also led Birchmere's investment in MiaSole. Ned has over 20 years experience in founding, managing, and investing in high technology companies. Ned was previously a senior manager at Concurrent Technologies Corporation, a $250 million high technology research organization, where he developed CTC's telemedicine business and was also responsible for electronic commerce, high speed networking, and virtual reality projects. Ned was also a Senior Manager in the U.S. Department of Defense Special Projects group where he was responsible for wireless communications, custom software projects, robotics, and various sensor technologies. Ned is also a co-founder of eLoop, a Basel Action Network certified e-steward that responsibly disposes of electronics waste. Ned is a founding Charter Member of TiE/Pittsburgh (an international entrepreneurial support group) and is a member of Allegheny County's Green Action Team. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Masters Degree in Engineering Management from George Washington University.

Scientific Advisory Board

Prof. Paul Alivisatos of U.C. Berkeley

Dr. Alivisatos is Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and Professor of Nanotechnology at U.C. Berkeley and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Alivisatos is one of the world's preeminent researchers and innovators in nanotechnology and solar energy.

Prof. Paras Prasad of SUNY Buffalo

Dr. Paras Prasad is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Medicine at University of Buffalo. Dr. Prasad is a renowned researcher in the field of nanomaterials, photonics and nanobiotics.

Prof. Sue Carter of U.C. Santa Cruz

Dr. Sue Carter is a Professor of Physics at University of California Santa Cruz. Dr. Carter is a leading researcher in the organic photovoltaics, organic light emitting diodes and inorganic-organic hybrid devices.

Investors

Birchmere Ventures
Birchmere Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 1996 with a focus on IP-differentiated companies to create Engineering Driven Innovation. With over $160 million under management, Birchmere is a lead investor in early-stage Cleantech, Medical, and Technology companies.
http://birchmerevc.com/

DBL Investors
DBL Investors, 2008 spin-out of the Bay Area Equity Fund from JPMorgan. DBL's investment approach combines top-tier financial returns with meaningful social, economic and environmental improvement in the regions in which it invests.
http://www.dblinvestors.com/index.php

Firelake Capital
Firelake Capital is a "hybrid" investment fund, driven by proprietary fundamental research in three areas where technology can significantly disrupt the economics of the current market -- information technology, energy technology and material science.
http://www.firelakecapital.com/home.html

Medley Partners
Medley invests primarily in private equity funds, including buyout, growth equity, venture capital, real estate and distressed in the United States, Europe and Asia.
http://medley-partners.com/

Olympus Capital Partners
Olympus Capital Partners is a new late-stage venture capital and growth equity firm that applies unconventional wisdom in seeking theme-based clean energy and IT investment opportunities that are capital-efficient and whose management teams are grounded and resourceful.
http://www.olympusvc.com

Trident Capital
Trident Capital is a venture capital and private equity firm founded in 1993 by industry veterans. Since then, the firm has grown to more than 20 investment professionals with $1.5 billion under management invested in more than 150 companies.
http://www.tridentcap.com/

X/Seed Capital Management
XSeed Capital is an independent, seed-focused, venture fund providing de-novo start-up capital for entrepreneurs pursuing breakthrough innovation.
http://www.xseedcap.com/