David Mackanic, CEO of Anthro, on how coaching helped 100× production capacity
David assembled Anthro's first battery cells by hand. Now they can produce over half a million a year. He explains what his coach taught him to get the company firing on all cylinders without his involvement in everything.
Without my Titan coach, it's hard to imagine the company would be firing on all cylinders as it is.
David wrote about his experience working with a Titan Coach on LinkedIn
See it on LinkedIn →The founder and the company
Who is David Mackanic?
David Mackanic is the co-founder and CEO of Anthro Energy, a battery company spun out of Stanford. He earned a PhD in chemical engineering at Stanford, where he developed Anthro's electrolyte technology in Zhenan Bao's lab. MIT Technology Review named him one of its 35 Innovators Under 35 in 2023.
Who founded Anthro Energy?
Anthro Energy was founded in 2021 by David Mackanic, its CEO, and Joe Papp, its CTO. It spun out of Stanford University and is headquartered in Alameda, California.
What is Anthro Energy?
Anthro Energy makes battery cells and a polymer electrolyte called Anthro Proteus. The electrolyte replaces the flammable liquid in lithium-ion batteries and works on existing manufacturing lines. It is built for consumer electronics, micromobility, defense and automotive batteries.
How much funding has Anthro Energy raised?
Anthro Energy has raised $27 million in equity: a $7.2 million seed led by Union Square Ventures and Energy Revolution Ventures (2022) and a $20 million Series A led by Collaborative Fund (2024). It also won a $24.9 million US Department of Energy award for an electrolyte plant in Louisville, Kentucky.
Does David Mackanic work with an executive coach?
Yes. David Mackanic works with an executive coach from Titan, which matches Series A to C founders with coaches who have built or coached companies at scale. In his Titan interview he says it is hard to imagine the company firing on all cylinders without his coach. He reports 100× production capacity and 3× customer growth.
From the conversation
Why did you start looking for a coach?
I first started thinking about getting a coach when I realized that I simply could not be involved in every decision that was being made in the company. If we wanted this company to scale, I was going to need to not only level up my game, but learn how to level up those around me.
How did you choose your coach?
The Titan matching process gave me a chance to interact with a number of different coaches. All of them were really impressive, and it was actually a hard choice to choose which coach to go with.
What is your coach like?
He has a military background, so he's very disciplined and very good at being systematic about processes and decision-making - which is something I value but don't always reflect in my day-to-day operation.
What has changed since?
It's been a really exciting past 18 months. Our team has more than doubled in size. Our production capacity has increased by roughly a factor of 100. We've tripled the amount of customers that we've been serving over the past nine months.
What would have happened without it?
Without the help of my coach, it's hard to imagine that the company would be firing on all cylinders as it is without my involvement in every single thing.
Full transcript
David Mackanic, Co-Founder and CEO of Anthro Energy, in conversation with Titan. Lightly edited for clarity.
Founding Anthro Energy
My name is David Mackanic. I'm the founder and CEO of Anthro Energy. We develop a materials platform that enables the creation of next generation batteries at scale.
From lab corner to scale
In the early days of Anthro, we were commercializing the technologies that I had developed while I was a student. We walked off of Stanford's campus and we went and we were shoved in a small corner of somebody else's research lab. So we were secondhand renting all their tools to assemble batteries. So thinking back to the early days when it was building cells by hand to where we are today, where we're able to produce up to half a million battery cells per year, the scale in terms of the operation has really increased. But it's also created a whole lot of challenges that are beyond just developing a technology in a lab.
Why he sought coaching
I first started thinking about getting a coach when I realized that I simply could not be involved in every decision that was being made in the company. I realized that if we wanted this company to scale, I was going to need to not only level up my game, but learn how to level up those around me.
Choosing a Titan coach
The Titan matching process gave me a chance to interact with a number of different coaches. All of them were really impressive and it was actually a hard choice to choose which coach to go with. My coach is awesome. He has a military background and so he's very disciplined and very good at being systematic about processes and decision making, which is something I value but don't always reflect in my day-to-day operation.
Growth during eighteen months
It's been a really exciting past 18 months. Our team has more than doubled in size. Our production capacity has increased by roughly a factor of 100. We've tripled the amount of customers that we've been serving over the past nine months. Without the help of my coach, it's hard to imagine that the company would be firing on all cylinders as it is without my involvement in every single thing.
Reinventing battery technology
We can imagine a world where the amount of batteries deployed increases by a factor of 50 over the next 20 years. And so everything you think about a battery today, throw that out the window. With our technology, we want to reinvent that.
David Mackanic and Anthro Energy: quick facts
| Role | Co-founder and CEO, Anthro Energy |
|---|---|
| Company founded | 2021, as a Stanford spinout; headquartered in Alameda, California |
| Co-founder | Joe Papp, CTO |
| Education | PhD in chemical engineering, Stanford (2020); BS in mechanical engineering and BA in chemistry, Virginia Tech (2015) |
| Previously | NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Zhenan Bao's lab; Activate fellow (2021); partner, Dorm Room Fund |
| Recognition | MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35 (2023); Forbes 30 Under 30, energy (2021) |
| Equity raised | $27 million |
| Grants | $24.9 million, US Department of Energy (2024); $5.5 million, California Energy Commission (2025) |
| Investors | Collaborative Fund, Union Square Ventures, Energy Revolution Ventures |
| Links | LinkedIn · anthroenergy.com · Crunchbase |