Conifer Featured in TechCrunch After Raising $20M to Reimagine Electric Hub Motors

Ankit Somani, co-founder of Conifer, was featured in TechCrunch to announce the company’s $20 million seed round and its bold new approach to electric motor innovation.

The article, “Conifer locks down $20M seed round for its ‘drop-in’ electric hub motor”, highlights how the company is addressing EV powertrain complexity, supply chain risk, and manufacturing efficiency by developing motors that avoid rare earth elements entirely. Conifer’s motors rely on ferrite magnets, which are more abundant and cost-effective — a timely advantage in the current era of tariffs and trade disruption.

“There was a lot of investment in the battery technology segment, all the way from cathodes, anodes, electrolytes — every piece of it. But not enough on the powertrain front,” Somani said. “So we saw that as an opportunity from a market standpoint that, hey, there’s not enough people who have thought enough about this from the ground up.”

Conifer’s “drop-in” motor design is aimed at OEMs looking to improve performance without redesigning their vehicles – a value proposition that has already attracted global interest across electric mobility, HVAC systems, and even agricultural equipment.