24M in a nutshell: there were a lot of very intelligent people at the company, unfortunately none of them were in charge.
Disclaimer: This post reflects the personal views and experiences of Dr. Alyssa Stavola and was written independently. Dr. Stavola voluntarily departed her former employer in 2025 and did not enter into any severance agreement, non-disparagement clause, or confidentiality restriction limiting her ability to speak about her experiences.
This post, while entertaining, includes important lessons that the battery industry needs to learn. 24M Technologies isn’t the only battery company to be making mistakes, but it is the one that I personally witnessed.
How does a company create a billion dollar valuation without product market fit??
Let’s get into it.
The origin story:
24M Technologies was founded in 2010 as a spin-out of Yet-Ming Chiang’s Lab at MIT (same origin as A123 systems, Form Energy, Desktop Metal, Adden Energy, and Sublime Systems).
Originally a flow battery concept for lithium-ion, the name refers to 24 Molar: extremely high active-material concentration in suspension, ~20+ molar equivalent lithium concentration.
The concept replaced conventional solid electrodes with essentially a flowable lithium-ion electrode slurry; designed to combine the high energy density of lithium-ion with the architectural flexibility of redox flow systems. By suspending solid cathode and anode particles in electrolyte at extremely high effective molarity, the approach aimed to reduce inactive materials and simplify manufacturing.
However, pumping high-solids electrochemical sludge through a system and keeping it stable, conductive, and uniform...
Academically fascinating.
Operationally brutal.
So they pivoted.
The core technology as we now know it:
Originally called “semi-solid” and rebranded to “LiForever” for its recycling capabilities; it is fundamentally a manufacturing modification, not new electrochemistry. Traditional lithium-ion electrodes have active material, carbon additive, and binder (fancy battery glue) mixed with a solvent that is baked/dried out.
24M decided to skip the drying step by using electrolyte to coat the active materials. At 24M you would mix active material, carbon, and electrolyte (no binder) together into a thick paste with playdoh like consistency and you would apply this paste to a current collector similar to how one applies spackle to a wall to patch holes.
An F300 cell from 24M (anode is 300cm2 in size, and the F is named for the tabs being on the same side so that the wires when you hook it up look like an F, cells with tabs on opposite sides were “M”
Thicc electrodes sound like great energy density…
An interesting parallel emerged when 24M licensed its thick-electrode, LFP/graphite platform to a Japanese battery manufacturer.
The core chemistry was the same: lithium iron phosphate cathode, graphite anode, high areal loading, simplified manufacturing architecture.
But the market decisions diverged.
The Japanese company looked at thick LFP electrodes and optimized for stationary energy storage: a segment that tolerates higher weight, prioritizes cycle life and cost stability, and has more forgiving qualification cycles.
24M, by contrast, leaned toward electric vehicles during a period when EV capital was abundant and the total addressable market looked irresistible.
The physics did not change. The manufacturing complexity did not change. What changed was the application environment.
And in batteries, application context determines survival.
Identical technology placed into different markets produces radically different outcomes.
Fast forward to today and the rise of AI…
has created a huge comeback in the stationary energy storage market. Perhaps if 24M execs hadn’t been blinded by a shiny Volkswagen partnership chasing a power density they never could have possibly hit.. would the story be different today?
The downfall
1: Lack of product market fit:
These electrodes could be >250um thick and they were using pretty boring electrolytes. See the problem here?
The first BBB post was actually inspired by something I felt everyone at 24M should existentially understand and didn’t: the difference between Power and Energy Density.
“Energy density is the energy per unit volume. Power density is colloquially defined as how quickly that energy can be accessed.
In order to optimize for energy density, one could design thick electrodes in their batteries to maximize capacity. However, thick electrodes would lower power density. Thin electrodes optimize the time required for electrochemistry to occur.“
Any good electrochemist knows we are just simple matchmakers between a li ion and an electron. If they are not meeting at the same place we get underutilization of our electrodes. In 24M's case you got a lot of lazy Li that plated on the surface of the electrode, since the ionic conductivity simply wasn’t high enough to combat the large distance to travel through the thick electrodes.
By definition thick electrodes are for low power applications. How 24M managed to catfish Volkswagen is embarrassing for both parties....
2: Reactive R&D:
There are two rules for research development: come up with creative solutions and fail quickly. 24M didn’t feel that creativity was part of the job. They would track other companies announcements and when something cool was announced they would try to replicate it.
An important thing to note here is when a company has already announced they’ve done something you aren’t going to beat them to market. They’re already there. You’re starting from zero.
This happened with a few technologies in my time there, but notably was the BYD blade battery. All of a sudden we were working on a huge carpet cell with conventional electrodes. The carpet cell is not a novelty, and not unique; and someone is already selling a version of it. This is not how you do R&D.
3: Scattered execution:
If 24M were a rowboat, it would have several people rowing in different directions. The company was not aligned on a single priority, and each department was so siloed and working on almost independent projects.
It’s impressive to have execution be this scattered when they aren't prioritizing novel R&D (which tends to create cool new projects and shifting priorities).
4: Leadership:
24M’s leadership team seemed to make decisions without talking to any technical personal to ensure that their assumptions would hold. They had a large amount of middle managers who seemed to be unfamiliar with electrochemical principles and cell manufacturing.
24M’s legacy
You wouldn’t be here today reading this newsletter if it wasn’t for my time at 24M- check out the post that started it all here: Power and Energy Density.
Some of the employees at 24M used to joke that it was the best multi-level marketing they’ve ever seen. The thing about getting (misleading?) investors is that it really can seem like MLM. You are only worth the money someone is willing to give you, and boy did 24M have the hustle to get that high valuation.
24M inspired me in so many ways: to be the best electrochemist I can be, to educate people on these important electrochemistry principles so no one else suffers similar mistakes. But most importantly 24M taught me that there will always be an idiot in charge of a company, and I could be that idiot. They have given me the confidence to start my own company, and I have so many great (and very smart) friends from my time working there.
If you happen to have job openings at your company: there is a fire sale on great battery engineers in Cambridge, MA. Feel free to reach out to ask which ones are worth giving a new home.