About SirenOpt

About us

Our Origin

SirenOpt is a spin-out from the Mesbah Lab at UC Berkeley's Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department. Co-founded by Jared O'Leary, Ali Mesbah, and Joel Paulson, the company specializes in using cold atmospheric plasmas (CAPs) for real-time, non-destructive advanced materials metrology. Initially focused on CAPs for treatment, the team discovered that CAPs could reveal detailed material fingerprints through visual, electrical, thermal, and spectroscopic data. After early success with battery startups, SirenOpt joined the Berkeley SkyDeck Accelerator and the Activate Fellowship, securing $6.6 million in Seed Funding in July 2024. The company's expertise lies in low-energy plasma control, machine learning, and optimized decision-making for advanced process and equipment control.

Founding

SirenOpt is a commercial spin-out from the Mesbah Lab in the Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley. At the Mesbah Lab SirenOpt’s co-founders (Jared O’Leary, Ali Mesbah, and Joel Paulson) were broadly interested in investigating learning-based methods for characterizing, modeling, and controlling intrinsically stochastic systems with nonlinear dynamics , including systems of cold atmospheric plasmas (CAPs), or atmospheric pressure plasmas , weakly ionized gases that sit near room temperature.

Cold Atmospheric Plasma

Though CAPs have been deployed in industry for decades to treat and clean complex materials, SirenOpt’s co-founders realized that they could maintain CAPs at extremely low energy levels that could allow the CAPs to non-destructively interact with these complex materials. They further realized that the resulting CAP-material interactions could reveal vast amounts of visual, electrical, thermal and spectroscopic data about materials and create uniquely distinctive, multifaceted material fingerprints in real-time.

The Idea Behind

Thus, the idea of SirenOpt was born, as SirenOpt’s co-founders “accidentally” discovered the CAP system they were investigating for treatment applications could be used as a real-time, non-destructive, advanced materials metrology platform. Early traction with Bay Area battery start-up companies then led SirenOpt to be accepted into the Berkeley SkyDeck Accelerator and the Activate Fellowship.

Support and funding

Support from these two programs allowed SirenOpt to progress quickly, culminating in a $6.6m Seed Funding Round that closed in July 2024. SirenOpt’s core technology expertise and intellectual property includes low-energy plasma control, machine learning and optimized decision making for advanced process and equipment control.