Form Energy

Form Energy was founded in December 2017 in Somerville, Massachusetts through the merger of two parallel startups: Baseload Renewables, an MIT spinout incubated at The Engine that was working on multi-day energy storage, and Verse Energy, a startup led by Mateo Jaramillo, who had previously built Tesla's stationary energy storage business as VP of Products and Programs. Rather than compete, the two teams recognized they shared the same goal and a combined team would be stronger. The five co-founders are Mateo Jaramillo (CEO), Ted Wiley (President & COO), MIT professor and materials scientist Yet-Ming Chiang, and engineers William Woodford and Marco Ferrara. The company is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts with its first manufacturing plant in Weirton, West Virginia — a former steel town in the Ohio River Valley that Form has committed to revitalizing with hundreds of new manufacturing jobs.

Form Energy's published mission is to make renewable energy reliable and accessible while ensuring grid stability — specifically by inventing low-cost batteries capable of storing electricity for multiple days. The company was founded on a sharp insight: lithium-ion batteries can economically store electricity for four to eight hours, which handles the daily solar-to-evening transition, but does nothing for multi-day weather events, seasonal gaps, or the week-long calm spells that leave wind-heavy grids vulnerable. Form systematically evaluated every possible storage material before converging on iron — the same element that makes up roughly a third of the Earth by mass. The iron-air battery uses a reversible rusting reaction: during discharge, iron oxidizes in the presence of air to release electrons; during charging, it is reduced back to iron. The process requires only iron, water, and atmospheric oxygen — none of the constrained critical minerals that limit lithium-ion scale-up.

Form Energy has raised over $800 million in total funding. Its 2025 Series F of $405 million was led by T. Rowe Price and joined by GE Vernova, TPG Rise Climate, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Capricorn Investment Group, Coatue, Temasek, and GIC, among others. The company holds a conditional $760 million DOE Loan Programs Office commitment. Early investors include ArcelorMittal, the world's second-largest steelmaker, which recognized that iron-air batteries could create a significant new market for iron as a storage material. Form has also received equity from MIT's The Engine.

Form Energy's first commercial-scale manufacturing facility in Weirton, West Virginia is actively ramping production of iron-air batteries. In early 2025, Form announced a landmark 300 MW / 30 GWh iron-air battery deployment with Xcel Energy to power a new Google data center in Minnesota — the largest battery system by energy capacity ever announced globally. This project, along with deployments with Georgia Power and Great River Energy, marks the beginning of Form's commercial operating history. CEO Jaramillo has framed the company's ambition plainly: iron-air batteries that can store clean energy for 100 hours at a time are not just a product but the missing enabling technology for a grid that runs on renewables year-round.