New Ideal Power Inc (NASDAQ:IPWR) CEO David Somo is already steering the technology company toward its next chapter of growth. Fresh off a new purchase order from automotive giant Stellantis, the company is ramping up momentum as it heads into 2026.
In this Q&A, Somo and CFO Tim Burns discuss how Ideal Power’s B-TRAN technology is poised to make an impact across automotive, industrial, and AI-driven data center markets, and share their strategy for accelerating commercialization while leveraging the company’s deep patent portfolio and culture of innovation.
Proactive: David, you’ve just joined Ideal Power. Based on your initial impressions, what are the key opportunities you see for B-TRAN in the EV and data center markets, and how do you plan to prioritize them?
DS: Part of my excitement about joining the company at this stage in the commercialization of our B-TRAN technology is that a lot of foundational work has already been done. I’m looking forward to getting out on the road, meeting with customers, and hearing their feedback on how things are progressing—where they’re seeing the benefits and where they might need additional support from us to accelerate their own product development and commercialization efforts. It’s an exciting time as we see customer engagement continue to grow, and I’m eager to be part of that momentum.
How will your plan to meet with customers help to build momentum across multiple markets?
DS: I think it’s important to be in front of customers and really understand how they’re progressing with their product development—their interests, what they like about our technology, and how we can provide stronger support to help accelerate their programs and get their products to market. Just as importantly, I want to work closely with our internal team to gain a deep understanding of our products and programs so we can better support those customers.
We’re also focused on working with our sales channels and distributors to identify and add new opportunities to the funnel. It’s an exciting time for us—the market is large, representing a multibillion-dollar opportunity—and I’m looking forward to continuing to expand our sales pipeline while also working to close some of the opportunities already underway.
You highlighted revenue growth as a priority and noted your go-to-market experience. Can you give a sense of how you plan to accelerate commercialization of B-TRAN products, particularly with Stellantis and other prospective automakers?
DS: I think it’s important to look at the applications we can serve across automotive, industrial, and data center markets. The fastest path to market for the company is likely in circuit breaking and circuit protection, UPS systems, transformers, and other areas within data centers. As you’re probably aware, there’s significant investment going into data centers right now. They tend to adopt new technology more quickly, driven by what seems to be insatiable demand for AI data centers, which provides us with a faster adoption cycle for our products and a quicker route to market.
Industrial applications are another important area. While the adoption cycle isn’t quite as fast as in data centers, we can enter a variety of industrial applications sooner than the typical automotive development cycle. Automotive adoption tends to be longer, usually spanning multiple years. The process begins with engagement with advanced R&D teams seeking novel technologies with material benefits for next-generation vehicles. Once qualified at that stage, the technology moves to the series design team, which builds the vehicles, followed by release into different model years. Given that automotive applications are often safety-critical, the development cycle is inherently longer.
TB: Our architecture is new and novel for power semiconductors, so there’s naturally an education process involved. One thing we’re doing to help accelerate adoption is undergoing third-party automotive qualification testing. This testing will demonstrate to customers not just in the automotive space, but also in industrial and AI data center applications that our technology has long-term reliability. Automotive standards are particularly stringent, with extremes of heat and humidity that exceed what’s typically required for industrial applications. We expect to complete the automotive qualification testing in the coming months.
With a clean balance sheet and several potential sources of funds, how do you see strategic partnerships and potential development agreements shaping Ideal Power’s growth and ability to scale production?
TB: From a strategic relationship perspective, a couple of years ago we were a Stellantis Venture Award finalist. Through their venture group, there is a potential opportunity with Stellantis. Many of the industrial companies we’re engaging with have similar groups within their organizations, which could also be a source of capital. These opportunities generally take a bit longer to develop, as you need to be fairly far along in the process with the customer. But we’re making progress with companies like Stellantis, where we’ve maintained a relationship for a couple of years, so it’s definitely promising.
On the development agreement side, that’s also very positive for us. Much of the work we’re doing is aligned with product development we would be pursuing anyway, and it helps bring more products to market. If a customer requires custom development work, we’re open to that, as long as it’s covered under a development agreement. That provides additional cash and capital that we can deploy to continue growing the business.
Ideal Power now has a substantial patent portfolio and a strong foundation for growth. How do you see your leadership shaping the company’s long-term strategic roadmap?
DS: I really want to dive in and gain a deeper understanding of the company’s current position. We have outstanding technology and a strong patent portfolio that has been carefully built over time. Even in my short time here, I’ve already seen multiple new patent applications and filings, and we continue to expand our IP. Protecting our valuable inventions is important to us as we bring them to market.
What’s particularly interesting in our sector is that innovation spans multiple dimensions—not just the device itself, but also how it’s operated, the process to fabricate and manufacture it, and the packaging. We work across all these areas to develop novel solutions that deliver compelling benefits to our customers. I plan to continue fostering the innovative culture we have, so we can keep intersecting these applications as they evolve in the marketplace.
I joined because I believe the company has outstanding commercial potential to leverage our innovative technology into new growth applications.