LiquidPiston: LiquidPiston has developed an advanced internal combustion engine that is based on their patented thermodynamic cycle and engine technologies. Their engines drastically improve key metrics of an engine such as 2-3x more fuel efficient, 5-10x smaller/lighter with the potential to reach 2HP/lb, low vibration, and highly scalable (1 to over 1000 HP depending on specific needs). Their engines can be used in a wide range of products such as high altitude drones like the predator all the way down to cars, lawnmowers, or ATVs. They have so far received $10m in DARPA funding but are now looking to raise traditional venture capital funding. Their founder received his Ph.D. from MIT in Robotics and AI and their head of Corporate Development received his MBA from Harvard.
A standard 35 HP diesel engine (left) compared to LiquidPiston’s 40 HP diesel engine (right)
Ampaire: Ampaire is developing a fully-electric aircraft that will reshape the aviation industry. They are starting out with retrofits to small planes (<8 seats) such as Cesnas that are used for island hopping or cargo transport where the flight times are short, thus making the battery requirement small. The batteries will be hot-swappable and will help get hours of flight time on the engine while they develop their larger plane. The larger plane will be a fully electric, regional airplane about the size of a typical private jet. This is a longer-term goal that will be funded by the retrofit business and will also allow for faster certification as the engine will have many thousands of hours of flight time already. They raised a $2.6m seed round in June 2017 and are currently working in the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI). Their team comes from Caltech, Stanford, MIT, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, SpaceX, Virgin Orbit, Faraday Future, GE, and ABB.
Rendering of TailWind, Ampaire’s fully electric region plane
David Tearse 