Mater-AI Raises £1.5M Pre-Seed to Accelerate Discovery of Next-Generation Thermoelectric Materials

London-based deep-tech startup Mater-AI has raised £1.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Twin Path Ventures, with participation from Mishcon de Reya, One Planet Capital, XTX Ventures, the Conception X Angel Syndicate, Koro Capital and Tailored Solutions. The capital will accelerate research and development and support team growth as the company commercialises its AI-powered materials discovery platform.

More than 70% of global energy — worth over $152 billion annually — is lost as waste heat, escaping unrecovered from data centres, heavy industry, transportation and building systems. The last major breakthrough in thermoelectric materials, which can convert heat directly into electricity or provide refrigerant-free cooling, dates to the 1950s, when bismuth telluride became the go-to semiconductor for applications such as heated car seats and portable coolers. Decades of incremental progress have left the field ripe for a step-change, and Mater-AI is targeting exactly that gap.

The company has built a computational discovery engine that combines machine learning with physics-based modelling to design novel thermoelectric materials. Rather than relying on trial-and-error laboratory experimentation, the platform evaluates up to 100 candidate structures every hour and accelerates the entire design cycle by up to 438 times compared with traditional R&D methods. It simultaneously optimises for multiple properties, including thermal and electrical conductivity, making it possible to target higher efficiency, lower cost and manufacturability in a single pass.

Mater-AI is initially targeting thermoelectric generator applications in defence, automotive and industrial IoT, where improved material performance could unlock between £3.4 billion and £4.6 billion in new market value. Use cases include silent, solid-state power sources for next-generation defence systems, extended battery range in electric vehicles through thermal energy recovery, and self-powered industrial sensors capable of continuous remote monitoring without battery replacement. The company has established validation partnerships with Cambridge University, Imperial College London and the Henry Royce Institute to carry laboratory testing through to commercial scale-up. Founded by Dr Nickel Blankevoort (CEO), Gatleen Bhambra (COO) and Chelsea Williams (CTO), the team draws on Dr Blankevoort's doctoral work in quantum nanoelectronics and thermoelectrics at the University of Warwick, during which he discovered three new material structures in a year using conventional methods alone.

Twin Path Ventures led the round, with partner Nick Slater citing the platform's potential to unlock waste-heat harvesting in extreme environments as a foundational technology for the energy transition. Investor Riam Kanso at Conception X noted that Mater-AI's approach moves materials discovery from serendipitous historical finds to deliberate computational design — a shift the firm believes is closer than most anticipate.

Sources

• Soapbox VC – Mater-AI raises £1.5m pre-seed
• Tech.eu – Mater-AI secures £1.5M to tackle one of energy's oldest problems
• Sustainable Times – Mater-AI raises £1.5M to turn waste heat into electricity