Five companies selected for Spark Mobility Lab’s 2026 cohort
The Spark Mobility Lab reflects a broader push to position Tennessee as a national leader in the rapidly evolving transportation sector.
Five early-stage mobility companies will come to Knoxville on April 21-24 as the Spark Mobility Lab kicks off its 2026 cohort, bringing together founders working on everything from autonomous EV charging to drone-ready logistics routing.
The program, a collaboration between the Spark Innovation Center and the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council (TAEBC) with operational support from Launch Tennessee (LaunchTN), equips early-stage mobility founders with Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) training alongside direct industry engagement and investor readiness support.
Jack Ferrell of Golden Carbon Solutions LLC is leading this year’s TEA and LCA workshops. Chris McAdoo, one of Spark Innovation Center’s experts in Residences, will work with founders on their pitches.
“Mobility is a core part of American leadership. Tennessee has the energy assets, manufacturing base, and national laboratory infrastructure to lead,” said Bill Malkes, director of the Spark Innovation Center. “The Spark Mobility Lab brings these companies in to test their assumptions, build their models, and make decisions that move them toward commercialization.”
Meet the cohort
Seven participants representing five companies make up this year’s class: Electrovia, Fuel Daddy, PF Design Lab, PRSVR Systems, and ThermoVerse.
Knoxville-rooted PRSVR Systems is a logistics tech company led by Marcella Kaplan, a research assistant professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Center for Transportation Research. The company’s routing platform optimizes mixed-fleet delivery operations in seconds to reduce both costs and emissions.
Thomas Rush‘s Nashville-based Electrovia is developing high-power autonomous wireless charging systems for electric vehicles.
Atlanta’s Fuel Daddy, built by Hari and Krishna Chawla, is an AI-enabled operating system for fleet fuel procurement that helps fleets cut the hidden costs of refueling.
Lexington, Kentucky-based PF Design Lab, led by Patrick Flaherty, develops and prototypes natural fiber composite systems aimed at scalable manufacturing.
Rounding out the cohort is Detroit startup ThermoVerse, led by Shantonio Birch and Mani Venkata Sainadh Reddy Sathi, which leverages thermal energy storage to unlock hidden grid capacity in commercial buildings. This redirects energy from HVAC systems for applications like EV charging and micromobility.
Connect with the Director of the Spark Innovation Center, Bill Malkes.
Learn more about the Spark Innovation Center.
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