1188: Testing Assumptions Before Burning Capital | Kevin Hettrich, CFO, QuantumScape

That moment became an early proving ground for a finance leader who had entered QuantumScape from a background shaped by McKinsey & Company, Bain Capital, and Stanford’s joint business and engineering program. Rather than staying confined to finance, Hettrich immersed himself in the company’s technical environment. He tells us he would contribute to at least one patent application each year and spent time “changing targets out of that tool” and mixing chemicals alongside engineers.

The broader strategy behind QuantumScape has remained equally ambitious. The company’s goal is not incremental improvement, but batteries that are “smaller and lighter,” “faster charging,” “longer lived,” “safer,” and “lower cost at the same time,” Hettrich tells us. Today, the company has commercial partnerships with Volkswagen and collaborations with Corning and Murata Manufacturing as it works to commercialize its solid-state battery platform.

One example was our early work with Volkswagen. We started working with them back in 2012. I remember our first interaction in Belmont, California, where we explained that we had a vision for much better batteries. Their initial response was, “Great, put the cells in a box and we’ll give you feedback.” I explained this was more ambitious than that—we didn’t even know yet if the materials existed to make this work. What we were seeking was a long-term strategic relationship.

One of our co-founders, Fritz Prinz, knew the head of research at Volkswagen at the time, which helped open the dialogue. Volkswagen had employees at IBM working on lithium-air batteries who were sent over to evaluate what we were doing. Once we got positive feedback from them, that created momentum. Eventually, we entered into our first long-term collaboration agreement with Volkswagen, which included an investment and ongoing partnership. Looking back, that relationship became foundational. Volkswagen invested in every private round after that, and over time the collaboration expanded into joint ventures and licensing agreements. The seeds of all of that were planted very early.

CFOTL: Yeah, so the evolution of the company’s funding strategy—it seems like you were part of that from very early on.

Hettrich: I didn’t participate in the Series A, but I was involved in each private round after that, as well as in the transition from private to public company. Since becoming public, we’ve continued raising capital through a variety of structures.

Those stages are very different. Early fundraising as a private company was relatively stealthy and centered around venture capital firms, with increasing strategic participation over time. As the company matured, the check sizes became larger and we started attracting sovereign wealth interest. Then, of course, becoming a public company was a major lift. We completed a PIPE and business combination, and as a public company we’ve also executed follow-on offerings and an ATM program. Each of those became important sources of funding as the business evolved.

CFOTL: Again, you came up through the product management ranks and became VP of operations. What validated your finance résumé and allowed you to advance into leadership? Help us understand why you became the obvious choice.

Hettrich: Maybe I can tell another story. When I joined the company, I didn’t know whether I would be effective. I had a strong educational foundation and broad experience from McKinsey & Company and Bain Capital, but this was a completely different context. The founding team at QuantumScape took a bet on me.

One of the first areas where I made a real impact involved an expensive R&D tool we were using to make materials. We would rapidly create prototype variations, test them, learn from them, and design the next version. Speed of learning was critical.

Our CEO said, “We’re getting positive signals. Until proven otherwise, I believe this can scale. Let’s make the tools bigger and run them around the clock.” Our head of hardware engineering understood there was a challenge there, but he couldn’t fully articulate it.

So I talked with him, made phone calls, did analysis, and came back two weeks later with a framework. I put all the cost-of-goods-sold elements on a whiteboard—depreciation, labor, materials, consumables—and compared our current performance to the best anyone had ever achieved in any industry. Then I compared that to what would be required to succeed in automotive applications.

I pointed out that there were six orders of magnitude between the best anyone had ever done and what we would need. The room reacted immediately. Eventually, Jagdeep pulled me aside and said, “Thank you for making that point so early. In addition to working on the materials, we also need to develop a much more cost-effective manufacturing method.”

That moment really helped establish credibility with the team. It showed that even as a non-specialist, I could work across disciplines, structure a problem, use available data, and influence the company’s direction in a meaningful way.

I also had a bit of a chip on my shoulder. In those early years, I forced myself to contribute to at least one patent application per year, partly to prove to myself I could keep pace with the technical organization. I was back there changing targets out of equipment and mixing chemicals. I’m naturally curious, and I genuinely love learning. That curiosity helped me find ways to add value inside a very technical startup.

CFOTL: So you’ve been CFO since 2018—eight years in the seat. That’s significant. Tell us about the business today. What is the company you’re helping lead now?

Hettrich: Let’s start with the addressable market—it’s hundreds of billions of dollars. Batteries are essentially ubiquitous, and in many products where they don’t yet exist, the products would probably be better if they did.

What we’re pursuing isn’t incremental improvement. Our aspiration is to improve every dimension customers care about. We want batteries that are smaller, lighter, faster charging, longer lasting, safer, and lower cost at the same time. That’s the ambition.

The chemistry we’re focused on—solid-state lithium metal—has long been viewed as the “holy grail” of batteries. Today, we believe we are the global leaders in its development and commercialization.

In 2020, we publicly demonstrated performance data showing the chemistry working. In 2022, we shipped our first automotive prototypes. In 2024, we announced our first product, the QSC5, which combines energy density, charging speed, and safety in ways current lithium-ion technologies may never achieve.

That’s just the beginning. We hope to build an S-curve on top of that.

In 2024, we signed a licensing agreement with Volkswagen PowerCo, and in 2025 we expanded it. That arrangement includes opportunities for us to earn up to $130 million through technology customization, demo-part shipments, and training Volkswagen as a licensee. There’s also the opportunity for a licensing prepayment and future royalty streams once manufacturing scales.

As a licensing company, we want our partners to have turnkey solutions, so we’ve also been building out the ecosystem. Our proprietary ceramic separator is central to the technology. Corning and Murata Manufacturing—arguably two of the top ceramic manufacturers in the world—have both entered collaboration agreements with us.

Last fall, at the Munich Auto Show, we had an emotional milestone when our solid-state batteries powered a Ducati motorcycle across the stage. Then in February, we announced our first highly automated pilot line for manufacturing QSC5 cells. That pilot line is a major step because it demonstrates a scalable manufacturing process, gives customers and partners something tangible to visit and train on, and increases our production capacity enough to support additional markets beyond automotive, including AI data centers and aerospace and defense applications.