Pre-seed funds AI-driven platform to turn waste heat into electricity
This article covers Mater-AI, a UK greentech startup, which has raised £1.5m in a pre-seed round led by Twin Path Ventures to commercialise an AI-driven platform for discovering new thermoelectric materials. The development aims to accelerate discovery of materials that recover waste heat across data centres, transport and industrial sites, affecting efficiency and energy use in the UK and Europe.
Mater-AI, a UK greentech startup, has raised £1.5m in a pre-seed round led by Twin Path Ventures to commercialise an AI-driven platform for discovering new thermoelectric materials. The technology targets recovery of waste heat across data centres, transport and industrial sites — a practical route to efficiency gains that could affect energy use and supply chains across the UK and Europe.
Why it matters
More than 70% of global energy — estimated at over $152 billion annually — is lost as waste heat across sectors from data centres to heavy industry. Thermoelectric materials convert temperature differences into electricity or enable cooling without refrigerants, but the last major materials breakthrough for everyday thermoelectrics dates back to the 1950s with bismuth telluride. Faster discovery of higher-performance, lower-cost thermoelectric materials could broaden applications from self-powered sensors to quieter defence systems and extended-range electric vehicles.
The company projects that improved thermoelectric performance could unlock between £3.4 billion and £4.6 billion in new market value in targeted sectors such as defence, automotive and industrial IoT.
Inside the product
Mater-AI combines machine learning with physics-based modelling to speed materials discovery. The platform is claimed to generate and evaluate about 100 material structures every hour and, the company says, accelerates design cycles by up to 438× compared with traditional R&D methods.
Rather than single-property screening, the platform optimises multiple properties relevant to thermoelectrics, including thermal and electrical conductivity, with the aim of improving efficiency while keeping cost and manufacturability in view. Initial commercial targets are thermoelectric generators for defence, automotive and industrial IoT applications, where the company sees opportunities for silent, solid-state power sources and self-powered sensors for continuous monitoring.
Mater-AI is working with Cambridge University, Imperial College London and the Henry Royce Institute to validate candidate materials in the lab and plan scale-up toward commercial use.
Who are the investors?
The pre-seed round was led by Twin Path Ventures and included Mishcon de Reya, One Planet Capital, XTX Ventures, the Conception X Angel Syndicate, Koro Capital and Tailored Solutions.
In the announcement, Nick Slater, Partner at Twin Path Ventures, said:
Mater-AI is addressing a fundamental bottleneck in the energy transition: the discovery of next-generation thermoelectric materials. Their AI discovery engine has the potential to unlock entirely new applications such as harvesting 'waste' heat in extreme environments like powering sensors, vehicles, and defence infrastructure. We believe this is a truly foundational technology that will accelerate the path to a sustainable and efficient energy future.
In the announcement, Riam Kanso, Investor at Conception X, said:
Mater-AI has turned decades-old limitations in materials discovery into an opportunity for systems-level change. We're entering an era where the materials we build with are no longer determined by what we stumbled upon in the last century, but by what we can computationally design for the world we need. That future is closer than most people realise, and this team is building it.
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Founder perspective
Mater-AI was founded by Dr Nickel Blankevoort (CEO), Gatleen Bhambra (COO) and Chelsea Williams (CTO). The company builds on Dr Blankevoort’s academic work at the University of Warwick in theoretical modelling of quantum nanoelectronics and thermoelectrics; during his PhD he identified three new material structures in a year using traditional methods. The startup says its platform now produces and assesses candidate structures on timescales measured in hours rather than years.
In the announcement, Gatleen Bhambra, Co-founder & COO at Mater-AI, said:
Imagine data centres generating their own power from waste heat, electric vehicles that travel further by recapturing their thermal energy, infrastructure that never needs batteries, our platform finds new materials in weeks instead of years, bringing us closer to a world with a fundamentally different energy architecture, where everything powers itself.
The fresh funding will be used to accelerate R&D and expand the team as Mater-AI moves from computational discovery to laboratory validation and scale-up.
The bigger picture
Materials discovery is an under-recognised lever in the energy transition. Faster, targeted design of materials could unlock systems-level efficiency gains across industries and help reduce reliance on active cooling systems that use refrigerants. The deal also reflects growing interest from greentech investors in early-stage companies that pair AI with deep physical science.
Mater-AI’s partnerships with UK research institutions demonstrate the country’s pathway for translating university research into commercial ventures in advanced materials. If the claims around discovery speed and device performance prove out in lab and field tests, the technology could feed into European efforts to improve industrial efficiency and meet net-zero ambitions.
The funding round adds to a broader narrative in the UK and Europe: investors and research institutions are increasingly backing startups that target decarbonisation through materials innovation and hardware-software integration.
They've invested in Mater-AI
Get to know these greentech investors
| Investor | Sector | Stage | Activity | Team | Connect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Twin Path Ventures | 16 investments investments | 5 contacts contacts | |||
 Mishcon de Reya | 2 investments investments | more info | |||
 One Planet Capital | 2 investments investments | 3 contacts contacts | |||
 XTX Ventures | 13 investments investments | 1 contact contact | |||
 Conception X Angel Syndicate | 1 investment investment | more info | |||
 Koro Capital | 3 investments investments | more info | |||
 Tailored Solutions | 1 investment investment | more info |
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