Ann Arbor's Volt Harbor raises $2M seed to commercialize software-defined energy storage

Volt Harbor, an Ann Arbor, Michigan energy storage startup, last week announced it had closed a $2 million seed round and publicly launched as it moves from pilot work toward commercial deployment. The round was led by Palo Alto–based MFV Partners.

The company is commercializing a platform it calls MAC-BESS, built on six patents licensed from the University of Michigan. Co-founder and CEO Dr. Al-Thaddeus Avestruz is a former University of Michigan professor, and the company says it licensed its core technology from the university.

MAC-BESS integrates battery storage, power electronics, and on-board computing into a single modular system. The company says the architecture is modeled on computer networking, using software to coordinate power flow across battery modules from different manufacturers and chemistries. The company says it can be configured with new battery cells for data center deployments, or with second-life EV batteries for commercial, industrial, and utility-scale use.

Volt Harbor is aiming at two markets: data center power demand tied to AI construction, and aging utility grid infrastructure. According to the company, combining storage, power conversion, and switching into one platform reduces the number of separate systems data center operators have to source, integrate, and maintain.

"Energy storage and power electronics have always been treated as separate boxes. We've integrated them, along with on-board computing, into a single, software-defined product class," Avestruz said in the announcement.

Karthee Madasamy is Managing partner at MFV Partners from Los Altos California, said that “millions of EV batteries are about to reach the end of their automotive life, and Volt Harbor's platform is well positioned to put them back to work at a cost point new-build systems can't match."

The company claims the system delivers energy in under 100 microseconds and operates at single-parts-per-million failure rates - numbers it compared to spacecraft and commercial aviation deliverables - with no single point of failure. 

The company says that second-life EV battery modules run at roughly one-half to one-third the cost of new systems with equivalent capability, and that its software can extend usable battery life by up to 30 percent. EV batteries typically retain about 80 percent of their original capacity when retired from vehicles, according to the company.

Volt Harbor was previously awarded as part of the 2025 DTE Energy Emerging Technology Fund. Through that partnership it is deploying a MAC-BESS system on the DTE grid to buffer high-power EV charging events that exceed local capacity, and to provide demand response, peak shaving, and backup support.