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  • L to R: John Jovanovic, President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States; Doug Burgum, United States Secretary of the Interior; Tomoya Murata, General Manager, Trafigura Japan; Megan O’Connor, Co-Founder and CEO, Nth Cycle.

    Nth Cycle Announces Landmark $1.1 Billion Offtake Agreement with Trafigura, Expands Operations in U.S. and Europe

    Nth Cycle, the revolutionary critical metals refining company, has signed a binding 10-year agreement with Trafigura, a market leader in the global commodities industry, valued at approximately $1.1 billion USD. The agreement was signed as the Trump Administration hosted government and business leaders in Tokyo to discuss energy security at the first Indo-Pacific Energy Security Ministerial

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  • Daniel Lee, founder and CEO of Perseus Materials, presenting on stage during a pitch event. He gestures toward a screen behind him while speaking to an audience, highlighting his company’s innovative composite manufacturing technology.

    Perseus Materials closes strategic investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures

    Perseus was also backed early by Roadrunner Fund and incubated by Roadrunner Venture Studios, the nation’s first venture studio focused on deep technology company creation. Perseus Materials has closed a strategic investment for an undisclosed amount from Lockheed Martin, one of the largest defense technology companies in the world. The announcement reinforces what the East Tennessee entrepreneurial

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  • Graphic featuring the Perseus Materials logo alongside the Lockheed Martin logo, set against a desert landscape with a prominent rock formation. Roadrunner Venture Studios logo appears in the lower corner, indicating the strategic investment announcement.

    Perseus Materials Closes Strategic Investment from Lockheed Martin

    Perseus Materials, a venture-backed startup building the world’s fastest large-scale manufacturing system for composite parts, today announced the closure of a strategic investment by Lockheed Martin. Founded in 2022 by Stanford researchers, Perseus will begin expanding its team, fulfill its first customer orders, and grow its physical footprint. “We’re not interested in making marginal improvements

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  • Rolls of Ateios’ lithium iron phosphate and graphite electrodes offer higher energy density and higher capacity retention at lower costs. Credit: Ateios Systems

    Ateios Systems leverages ORNL tech to strengthen US battery supply chain

    Batteries power everything from cellphones to medical devices to defense systems. In 2021, Ateios Systems licensed technology from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to make battery manufacturing faster and cheaper—an innovation that now underpins the nation’s only domestic battery electrode supply chain, strengthening both economic and national security. Ateios Systems has continued to build on ORNL’s initial innovation, establishing

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  • Portrait of a bald man wearing blue-framed glasses, a dark blazer, and a light blue striped shirt, standing with arms crossed against a dark blue studio background.

    Qubit Engineering debuts AI-powered tool to analyze the modern power grid

    Qubit Engineering, part of the 2023 Innovation Crossroads cohort at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, recently launched Neuro-Grid, a computational tool that uses artificial intelligence for real-time, high-accuracy analysis of the power grid to offer insights not available through classical computing. Qubit leveraged Frontier, the world’s first exascale supercomputer housed at ORNL’s Oak Ridge

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  • Promotional graphic for Innovation Crossroads Cohort 2025 featuring Evan Stacy of Lumios Materials. The image shows a professional head-and-shoulders portrait of Evan Stacy wearing a blue blazer and white shirt, smiling against a dark teal and gray graphic background. Text on the image reads “Innovation Crossroads, Oak Ridge National Laboratory,” “Cohort 2025,” and “Evan Stacy, Lumios Materials.” Logos for Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Tennessee Valley Authority appear along the bottom.

    Innovating in square one | Lumios Materials has a different approach to carbon fiber production

    When Evan Stacy was knee-deep in his Ph.D. program at the University of Southern Mississippi, a side project evolved into tackling one of the biggest bottlenecks in carbon fiber production. Today, he’s commercializing that technology through the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Innovating in Square One When carbon fiber is produced, step one of the process is

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  • Launch Tennessee announces FY26 SBIR/STTR Matching Fund companies, surpasses $1 billion in economic impact featured image

    Launch Tennessee announces FY26 SBIR/STTR Matching Fund companies, surpasses $1 billion in economic impact

    Launch Tennessee today announced the 32 companies selected for its FY26 SBIR/STTR Matching Fund, marking a historic milestone as the program surpasses $1 billion in total economic impact – measured through follow-on capital raised, additional grants leveraged, and wages generated across the State of Tennessee. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology

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