Justin Briggs

Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer Antora Energy

Last Reviewed: September 29, 2026

Executive Summary

Justin Briggs is co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Antora Energy, a California company that builds thermal batteries: modules that use cheap, often intermittent electricity to heat blocks of solid carbon until they glow, then release that stored energy around the clock as industrial heat or, through thermophotovoltaic cells, as electricity. An applied physicist trained at UC Berkeley and Stanford, he founded Antora with Andrew Ponec and David Bierman, and he serves on the company’s board as well as running its operations as it moves from pilot units to factory-scale production and multi-gigawatt-hour deployments.

Career Highlights

• Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Antora Energy, alongside CEO Andrew Ponec and Chief Commercial Officer David Bierman.
• Named as an executive officer and director of Antora Energy, Inc. in the company’s August 2026 SEC Form D, filed for a $550 million equity round.
• Antora commissioned a 5 GWh thermal battery system for biofuel producer POET in Big Stone City, South Dakota, in May 2026, going from empty lot to energy delivery in under 12 months.
• Held research positions at MBio Diagnostics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, NCAR, Berkeley Space Sciences and NOAA between 2007 and 2017.
• Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University, where his research focused on high-temperature materials for energy generation and storage.

Professional Journey

Briggs studied physics at UC Berkeley and spent the decade from 2007 to 2017 in research roles across a wide span of institutions: the diagnostics company MBio Diagnostics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He then took a Ph.D. in applied physics at Stanford, where, in the company’s words, he developed next-generation renewable energy technology and researched high-temperature materials for energy generation and storage. That work on solid-state energy conversion is the technical root of what Antora sells.

With Andrew Ponec and David Bierman he co-founded Antora Energy to answer a specific question: how to turn cheap, clean but intermittent electricity into continuous energy for the largest industrial users. The answer is a thermal battery. Electricity heats carbon blocks inside an insulated module; the stored heat is delivered at industrial temperatures, or converted back to electricity using thermophotovoltaic cells. Speaking at TechConnect World in 2023, Briggs was described as having taken on nearly every role required to build an energy storage company from the ground up. His role now is Chief Operating Officer, and he is also a director of the company.

The operating side has grown quickly. Antora makes all of its batteries at a San Jose, California gigafactory that it recently expanded. In May 2026 it commissioned, with POET, a 5 GWh system of more than 200 thermal batteries serving a biofuel plant in Big Stone City, South Dakota, which went from empty lot to energy delivery in under 12 months. In July 2026 Antora closed a $550 million Series C co-led by G2 Venture Partners and Eclipse, with new investors including Ribbit Capital, Salesforce Ventures and Activate Capital, to expand production, including a second U.S. manufacturing facility, and to serve data centers as well as industry. The company’s earlier recognition includes TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023 and Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas.

Education

Stanford University

Ph.D., Applied Physics

University of California, Berkeley

B.S., Physics