Four years ago, Tyler Evans set out to build a battery with the lowest possible materials costs, emboldened by a surge in prices for lithium and other components.
That battery, he decided, would be made with no anode active material and instead of lithium use sodium, the same element found in ordinary table salt. He hoped it could help break U.S. dependence on China for batteries and the materials that go into them.
Yet when it came time for his startup, Mana Battery, to raise seed capital, lithium prices had crashed and two other U.S. sodium-ion startups -- Natron Energy and Bedrock Materials -- folded.
Potential investors were understandably concerned.
"This is one of the first questions that they would all ask," Evans said: "'All right, Bedrock and Natron just failed. How are you not going to fail?"
He said his answer was speed.
"We shipped battery cell prototypes for evaluation at tier-one battery manufacturers, tier-one vehicle manufacturers, tier-one defense contractors, the U.S. Army itself and others," Evans said.
Mana, which had until this year run on grants and a convertible note from pre-seed investors, raised $10.15 million in financing, said Evans, who co-founded the company in 2023 and is its chief executive. The seed round was led by Voyager Ventures and included participation from Union Square Ventures and Buff Gold Ventures.
The financing included roughly $1.85 million in grant money and non-dilutive funding tied to joint development agreements. The Broomfield, Colo.-based startup has raised a total of $14.1 million to date, he said.
Mana is already planning for another raise, its Series A, in the second quarter of 2027, Evans said.
Interest in sodium-based batteries has been rising as electrification, elevated fuel costs and the artificial intelligence build-out put a spotlight on energy availability. A June report from Morgan Stanley projected sodium-ion could account for roughly 20% of battery deployments by 2030.
At the same time, the Trump administration is scrambling to wean the U.S. off dominant Chinese suppliers of lithium-iron-phosphate, or LFP, and other batteries.
"For a country or for a company who depends on LFP batteries...that supply dependency is an existential threat," Evans said.
Mana wants to commercialize its anode-free sodium-ion technology via partnerships with established cell manufacturers, helping to feed demand for batteries in the defense industry, data centers and, ultimately, electric vehicles.
First Mana wants to scale and sell its proprietary liquid electrolyte -- comprised of borate molecules and key to making its own anode-free battery technology work -- to manufacturers as a stand-alone product.
Voyager partner Leonardo Banchik said he "had been looking for the right sodium-ion investment given broader battery and geopolitical trends, and Mana's capex-light approach and rapid building pace stood out."
Banchik said the 2025 closures of Natron and Bedrock "were real setbacks, and we took them seriously. But they sat in very different places from Mana."
Founders of Natron and Bedrock couldn't be reached for comment.
Evans said Mana has already signed conditional memorandums of understanding that could generate more than $100 million annually in so-called offtake, or sales agreements, by 2029 from its electrolyte, mostly to feed the build-out of energy storage systems.
In August, Mana unveiled an agreement with Saft, a battery maker owned by TotalEnergies, to collaborate on developing anode-free sodium-ion technology.
Anode-free cells are made without an anode active material, such as graphite or hard carbon. Instead, a sodium anode forms when the battery is used.
One of the biggest challenges for Mana is refining the manufacturing process.
"We're removing the anode, which is traditionally a thick component, and replacing it with what's essentially a piece of foil," said Evans. "Think of unwrapping foil and putting it over a casserole dish: if you look at it wrong, it crinkles. It's a really sensitive thing to work with."
Another: building the supply chain Mana would need to scale up.
While Mana can today source some of the materials it needs such as borates and soda ash from mines within the U.S., others will need to be imported at least at first, said Evans.
"We feel comfortable having a diversified set of relationships," he said. "Maybe they aren't going to be [all in the] U.S. initially. They might be Indian or South Korean. But they're still non-Chinese, and that's important."