Founder Stories: Yufeng Lai
We caught up with Xerode CEO Yufeng Lai about his unconventional journey into the sector, the challenges facing current production methods, and his team's ambition to bring manufacturing back to Sheffield.
Rewriting the rules of battery manufacturing with Xerode
Traditional battery innovation usually centers on chemistry; discovering new formulations, better materials, or higher-density cells. But Xerode, a new spinout from the University of Sheffield, are taking a radically different approach: fundamentally changing how batteries are physically manufactured.
Incorporated in April 2026, Xerode is pioneering a fully dry battery printing technology. By replacing traditional, energy-intensive wet-coating production lines, the company aims to dramatically lower manufacturing costs and enable localised battery production.
We caught up with CEO Yufeng Lai about his unconventional journey into the sector, the challenges facing current production methods, and his team's ambition to bring manufacturing back to Sheffield.
Hi Yufeng, can you start by telling us what Xerode does?
Yufeng Lai: Xerode is developing fully dry battery electro printing technology to enable low manufacturing costs, low upfront investment, and high flexibility.
To give a bit of background, the current way of making batteries is wet coating. If something is wet, you have to dry it, which is a huge energy and cost driver. It is also very inflexible because you have to re-tool the whole factory if you ever want to change the design, so it only works at the largest scale. That’s why Xerode exists. We’re developing a dry, modular, and much more flexible manufacturing process.
So what’s the primary problem you’re trying to solve?
Yufeng Lai: Current battery manufacturing has two major problems. The first is that it’s expensive. For example, up to 30% of an electric vehicle's cost comes from the battery. The reason it’s so expensive is the way we manufacture it. Because wet coating requires drying and solvent recovery, it has a high environmental impact and requires building huge factories. That makes the manufacturing cost really high and the industry very fragile, because your margins are thin and you need large upfront investment.
The second problem is the rigid, inflexible production line. You can’t easily change to a new design or tailor the performance because you’d have to shut down production to re-tool. Many small or medium applications have to compromise their design around off-the-shelf batteries because that’s the only affordable option.
What excites you personally about this challenge?
Yufeng Lai: What gets me up in the morning is that we are tackling a manufacturing problem rather than a chemistry problem.
In battery companies, a lot of innovation focuses on the chemistry; developing new formulations, better electrodes, or better batteries for specific applications. What we do is fundamentally change how the deposition works physically. We change how the battery is made, rather than changing a single chemistry. That fundamental change can revolutionise battery manufacturing and open the entry point for many small and medium sectors to make batteries.
Your journey to becoming CEO wasn’t the typical path. Could you tell us about your background?
Yufeng Lai: My background is quite different from that of a typical battery researcher. I studied materials science, completed my PhD in energy (focusing on fuel combustion rather than electrical energy), and spent several years researching advanced manufacturing and measurement science.
I joined the Xerode team two years ago. Unlike many founders, I wasn't the original technical inventor in the lab. My co-founders Dr. Dennis (now CTO) and Prof. Rachel (now CSO) led the core research, which was initially funded by the Faraday Institution as an Industry Sprint project to see if active materials could be printed into functional electrodes.
I was brought on as an entrepreneurial lead to take Xerode from a university lab into the real world. My focus is purely commercial: building the business model, talking to investors and customers, and scaling the operation.
What stage is the business at right now?
Yufeng Lai: We incorporated in April 2026 as a spinout from the University of Sheffield.
Technically, we are at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 4 to 5; we can print active materials across at least three different chemistries, cycle them in coin cells, and demonstrate promising performance on modified equipment.
To date, we’ve secured £650k in non-dilutive grant funding. We are currently undergoing our first equity fundraising round and conducting due diligence with potential lead investors.
How has the Commercialisation Journey supported you?
Yufeng Lai: Coming from an academic background, our skillsets were very academic. For my role as CEO, that transition is quite big. The Commercialisation Team was really helpful by giving us access to training, mentoring, and coaching programs tailored to our stage.
We had weekly support from our Commercialisation Manager and external mentoring, like the Northern Triangle Mentorship program, which really helped my transition from an academic researcher to a CEO role. They also provided funding for external assessments, which were extremely helpful for conversations with customers and investors.
Why did you opt to keep the company in Sheffield?
Yufeng Lai: As a University of Sheffield spinout, staying here lets us continue leveraging our collaboration with the University and the School of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering.
Sheffield is also a great region for innovation, with a healthy startup ecosystem where founders and CEOs share networking and advice. But beyond that, Sheffield is historically the city of manufacturing. What Xerode is doing is battery manufacturing, and our team has a shared ambition to bring novel, advanced manufacturing back to Sheffield where it belongs.
What has been your biggest milestone so far, and where do you see Xerode long-term?
Yufeng Lai: The biggest milestone in my mind is that we have reached significant commercial readiness with named Tier 1s and OEMs, including an automotive OEM in Europe and one of the biggest cell makers in Asia.
We have active technical exchanges, sample assessments, and paid projects under negotiation. Compared to our technical readiness level, our commercial readiness is well beyond that, which is a big milestone achieved by the whole team.