Guide Startups

Steinmetz

Winter 2025 · Active

Hardware for Electric Vehicles.

Location: San Francisco, US

Founded: 2024

Team size: 2

Industries:

About

Steinmetz is an electric vehicle platform company based in San Francisco. We use new power electronics techniques to significantly improve power densities (kW/kg, kW/L) bringing down vehicle system costs and even unit costs. Our first products are Inverters/motor controllers with industry-leading power densities while remaining cost competitive.

Founders

  • Owen BrakeFounder

    Multi-disciplinary engineer with a track record of building across industries—from high-performance brake systems to GHz FCC compliance and scaling production SQL databases with 10B+ records. Previously developed motor controllers at Tesla. Held diverse engineering roles at Neuralink, Apple, Parallel Systems, and Ford. Mechatronics Engineering graduate, University of Waterloo. Led the Formula Electric team, driving innovation in EV performance.

  • Ethan ChilderhoseFounder

    Co-founder and CTO at Steinmetz. Previously at Rocketlab, Nvidia, Tesla, and Neuralink. I've worked across the hardware stack from analog transistor level design to 100 lb mechanical fixtures for environmental testing. My work has reached the moon, been mass produced millions of times, and processed the faintest of signals from the human brain.