Why we invested in glimpse
Mobility Early-Stage VC
By Jeff Peters
Posted March 2025
Glimpse, founded by Eric Moch, Peter Attia, and Patrick Herring, just announced its $10M Series A led by TDK Ventures. It's a perfect time to reflect on our original investment thesis from April 2023.
We wrote the first check into Glimpse after they created the company and led their $4M seed round alongside Flybridge Capital Partners and a handful of angels in the EV space.
We thought a lot about battery quality leading up to our investment, especially in light of the significant recalls that have shaken the automotive industry in recent years. As EVs have penetrated the market, so have billions of dollars worth of recalls. GM and Hyundai faced expensive recalls due to defective batteries, with estimated costs of about $2B and $900M, respectively.
Those continue today with Samsung SDI recently recalling approximately 180,000 high-voltage battery packs used in plug-in hybrid models from Jeep, Ford, and Audi due to potential internal cell failures that could lead to power loss or fires.
Glimpse is building the quality management system (QMS) for battery cells. The key wedge and differentiator for Glimpse is high-throughput, high-resolution CT scans of finished cells. Unlike most standard cell quality inspection techniques, CT scanning can identify a very broad range of failure-inducing defects in cells. Combined with other techniques in their QMS, Glimpse can ensure defective cells never enter the EV supply chain.
OK, fine, but what gave us the confidence to invest in Eric, Peter, and Patrick at the ideation stage?
Three things: Eric, Peter, and Patrick. All are exceptional individuals with exceptional "founder-market fit." When we invest, we ask the question: "Is this founding team the best possible team to solve this problem?" For Glimpse, the answer was a resounding "YES."
Below is a screenshot of the summary bullet points from our internal investment memo, but at its core, it is an investment into exceptional founders.
Beyond the team, Glimpse fits perfectly into our Ibex Mobility Early-Stage VC thesis around EVs. EVs are starting to scale, but we have little belief in our ability to pick the winners in the space. Tesla did an excellent job in busting down the door, but everything had to go right, and they required billions and billions of dollars of investment raised by an unparalleled fundraiser. Same goes for new EV entrants: you basically need Saudi money to even have a shot. No joke: Rivian, Lucid, ...
Further, now that Tesla has busted down the door, incumbent automakers are finally launching their EVs and eating into their market share. For example, in 2024 EV sales increased 7.3% in the US and 25% globally (!), but Tesla deliveries were down 1.1% from 2023 - indicating EV growth and an increasing brand mix.
The Ibex Mobility Early-Stage VC thesis has been around picks-and-shovels and supply chain opportunities in the EV market. Our investments in Chemix, Evident Battery, Vulcan Elements, and Glimpse reflect that thesis.
So, why is Glimpse so important to this thesis? Well, automakers largely do two things: 1) assemble complex, high-quality products at scale and 2) market the hell out of them. Glimpse solves the biggest problem in both these core functions in the transition to EVs.
First, cars have traditionally been assemblies of mechanical and electronic components. As such, the automotive industry has fantastic mechanical and electrical engineering talent.
EVs bring chemistry into the equation. The auto industry today has almost ZERO chemical engineering experience relevant to batteries – nor manufacturing experience for batteries. Batteries are a completely unique technology to automakers' current engineering competence. There is massive risk due to a lack of internal knowledge of what makes a good battery vs. a defective one. Glimpse exists to ensure the quality of battery cells leaving cell factories and entering assembly at EV automakers.
Second, Glimpse helps battery manufacturers and automakers protect their brands. Defects leading to massive recalls (or worse) can destroy centuries-old brand legacies overnight. Glimpse can catch these defects before they escalate into multi-billion dollar recalls.
At this point, if an automaker has an unfortunate event due to cell quality, can the CEO or Board of Directors look their customers in the eye and say, "It was unpreventable?"
No. Just ask Boeing.
Jeff Peters
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