Building With Better Matter: Motors, Solar & Supersonic—A Materials Panel | SF Deep Tech Week 2025

Presented by Voyager VC at SF Deep Tech Week 2025 (https://luma.com/voyager-materials)
https://www.voyagervc.com/


Deep Tech Week is a decentralized conference hosting the worlds best entrepreneurs and investors bringing science fiction technologies to life
https://www.deep-tech-week.com/

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A rapid-fire panel on how new materials and processes are reshaping hardware at scale. Moderator Naré Janvelyan (Voyager VC) digs into three frontier efforts:

Astro Mechanica (Ian) — materials and manufacturing choices for high-speed aircraft (from high-temp composites to titanium & nickel superalloys).

Alumino (Brian Harden) — replacing costly silver in silicon solar with laser-cut copper foils to unlock multi-terawatt scaling.

Conifer (Ankit) — rare-earth-free electric motors using ferrite magnets and a re-engineered stator + manufacturing flow for cost and supply-chain resilience.

Expect hard realities on manufacturability, supply-chain strategy, and where the real “white spaces” are for founders.

📝 Description

How do you pick the right materials—and the right factory steps—when performance, cost, and geopolitics all collide?

In this SF Deep Tech Week panel, Voyager VC’s Naré Janvelyan hosts three builders pushing the edges of materials and manufacturing:

Ian (Master Mechanica): Designing engines and airframes for Mach-class aircraft—when do you leave epoxies behind, which polyimides matter, and where do titanium and single-crystal nickel live in the stack? Why vertical integration of machining (VTLs, 5-axis milling, balancing) speeds iteration.

Brian Harden (Aluminio): Solar’s biggest cost/risk is silver. The fix: thin copper foils laser-patterned and soldered at line speed—engineered for 3,000 wafers/hour manufacturability, not just lab records.

Ankit (Conifer): Electrifying a billion small engines means ditching fragile supply chains. Conifer’s motors use $5/kg ferrite (not $100/kg rare-earths), 95% less electrical-steel waste, and SPM tooling to run multiple motor SKUs on one line.

They cover: picking materials under heat/strength constraints, scaling equipment vs. contract manufacturing, lead-time as market signal, and the real gaps in HV transformers, cathode/anode/copper cost stacks, advanced resins, and titanium forming.

🎤 Panel:

Moderator: Naré Janvelyan — Investor, Voyager VC

Panelists: Ian (Master Mechanica), Brian Harden (Aluminio), Ankit (Conifer)

📍 Recorded live at Deep Tech Week San Francisco 2025

💡 Key Takeaways

Manufacturability to lab magic: Winning substitutions (e.g., copper for silver) must run at production throughput and yield—not just hit device records.

Vertical integration buys time: Early in hardware, in-house machining/assembly slashes lead-time and iteration cost; outsource only after the process is nailed.

Materials are contextual: Speed and heat push airframes from epoxies → polyimides → titanium; engines live in titanium + nickel superalloys regardless.

Cost & resilience from the BOM up: Rare-earth-free motors with ferrite + efficient stators cut cost and derisk supply chains without giving up power density.

Follow the real bottlenecks: In solar, silver dominates module cost risk; in batteries, cathode, anode, copper top the list; in grid, ultra-HV transformers/switchgear are starved.

Lead time is a market sensor: Spikes in component lead times reveal actionable entry points for startups—even more than commodity spot prices.

White spaces to build: Cheap-to-form titanium (robotic/advanced forming), copper-foil alternatives in batteries, high-voltage transformers/switches, and thermally conductive, moldable resins.

👥 Speaker Bios (1-liners)

Naré Janvelyan (Moderator) — Investor at Voyager VC, backing early-stage founders in energy, compute, and advanced manufacturing.

Ian (Master Mechanica) — Founder building high-speed aircraft; deep background in aviation, composites, precision machining, and turbomachinery.

Brian Harden (Aluminio) — Solar veteran (ex-silver paste founder, acquired 2019); now replacing silver with copper via laser-patterned, soldered foils.

Ankit (Conifer) — Ex-Google data-center R&D; building rare-earth-free motors with ferrite magnets and a manufacturing-first platform.