Mission-Driven Innovation & Scaling

Mission

Our mission is to provide innovative cathode materials solutions that enable the global EV revolution.

Company

Stratus Materials is a U.S. based developer and manufacturer of manganese-rich, cobalt-free cathode active materials (CAMs) for lithium-ion batteries, offering a highly compelling combination of performance, safety, cost and environmental impact to leading battery manufacturers and their OEM customers.  Our LXMO™ cathode class is primarily focused on advanced  solutions for light- to medium-duty electric vehicles and other applications with similar requirements.

For years, the lithium-ion battery industry has been seeking the performance and cost advantages of a high-manganese cathode chemistry, but these cathodes have faced persistent challenges with stability when cycling.  Utilizing proprietary formulations and production processes, the Stratus Materials team has developed manganese-rich, zero-cobalt cathode materials that deliver outstanding functionality, energy density, stability, low cost, and input materials availability, overcoming the challenges that have hindered high-manganese systems to date.

For today’s EV companies, the attributes of current commercial CAMs often require significant tradeoffs to be made between performance, range, safety, and cost.  Stratus’s LXMO provides EV OEMs and their customers with a superior cathode solution without tradeoffs.

LXMO CAMs from Stratus deliver battery performance that exceeds high-nickel NMC CAMs, while providing the high safety and low cost per unit energy of LFP CAMs.  This combination of attributes is particularly attractive to and enabling for the electric vehicle industry.

 

The company was founded in early 2022 to commercialize a set of highly promising technical innovations by a team led by Dr. Jay Whitacre, a Carnegie Mellon University professor and serial entrepreneur.  The foundational work for Stratus was informed by findings at CMU and occurred  over a 4-year period at two prior incubator companies named 33 Tech and Scaled Ionics.

 

 

Stratus is partnering with industry leaders to establish high-volume LXMO production in North America, Europe, and Asia in the coming years. It is our intention that LXMO will become a critical enabler of domestic CAM supply chains for advanced battery and electric vehicle production in the North American and European regions. 

It is our near-term intention to stand up future cathode production facilities in North America and Europe that will become a critical part of robust domestic supply chains for advanced battery and electric vehicle production.

© COPYRIGHT 2023 STRATUS MATERIALS, LLC     |     ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Ian Matts

Director, Technical Programs

Ian is a committed technology developer with over 10 years of lithium-ion battery experience.  Over that time, he has held diverse roles, ranging from fundamental materials research and product development to program management and business development.  His primary focus is on cathode active materials, but he has additional expertise in battery formulation optimization, electrode design, and cell characterization and testing.  Ian has B.S. and Ph.D degrees in Materials Science and Engineering, both from MIT.

 

Andrea Smith

Director, Quality

Andrea has 20 years of experience in process engineering, quality and continuous improvement.  She has held roles focused on ISO9001 compliance, manufacturing quality and process control, supplier quality management, product development quality assurance, and lean six sigma problem solving in a variety of industries including energy storage, chemical coatings, food, glass and electro-mechanical devices.  Andrea has a BS in mechanical engineering from Case Western Reserve University and an MS in statistics from Penn State University.  

Jared Mitchell

Principal Process Engineer | Co-Founder

Before Stratus, Jared spent ten years at Carnegie Mellon University and Aquion Energy, Inc. focusing on materials and process innovation for advanced batteries and systems.  Prior to that, he worked for ABB and Keystone Diesel in their electric and diesel power solutions groups, respectively.  Jared’s blend of knowledge, persistence, curiosity, creativity, instinct, and hard work is truly unique and extremely valuable to Stratus.

Wei Wu

VP Technical Operations | Co Founder

Wei is a well-rounded technical leader with over 12 years of experience in material science, engineering, and supply chain management for materials in energy storage applications.  He has held Director and Senior Manager roles in research and development, product development, and supply chain management at Aquion Energy and Amazon Inc.  He holds a Ph.D. in Material Science and Engineering from CMU, an M.B.A. from CMU’s Tepper School of Management, and a B.S. in Electronic Science and Engineering from Southeast University in China.

Scott Pearson

President | CCO | Co-Founder

Scott is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in multiple industries including energy storage, uninterruptible power systems, fuel cells, electric transportation, electronics assembly equipment and materials, digital imaging, defense systems and additive manufacturing. In his career, he has held the role of CEO and/or President six times in addition to prior functional roles in product development, product management, operations/manufacturing, business development, and corporate strategy. He holds an M.B.A. from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts.

Jay Whitacre

CEO | CTO | Founder

Jay is a material scientist and physicist with over 25 years of technical, business, and academic experience. His career has been focused on understanding and developing electrochemical materials and systems with a focus on lithium-ion batteries, energy policy, and innovation theory. He is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the Materials Science and Engineering & Engineering and Public Policy departments, holds the Trustee Chair in Energy, and is currently on academic leave (after serving as the director of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation for 6 years).  Whitacre developed a novel aqueous battery chemistry that was manufactured and sold by Aquion Energy, a company he founded in 2008 that produced and shipped over 30 MWh of energy storage worldwide. Earlier in his career, he was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he worked as a battery technologist, system engineer, and mission cognizant engineer. Jay holds a BA in Physics from Oberlin College as well as a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan.