By TechCrunch | Created at 2025-03-06 18:03:38 | Updated at 2025-03-06 21:01:18
3 hours ago
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 earlier 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.
Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor. De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
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