Owen Brake
| Owen Brake | |
| Occupation | CEO and co-founder of Steinmetz |
|---|---|
| Known for | Next-generation motor controllers for electric vehicles |
| Education | University of Waterloo (BASc, Mechatronics Engineering, 2019–2024) |
Owen Brake is a Canadian hardware engineer and entrepreneur who is the co-founder and CEO of Steinmetz, a San Francisco-based startup that develops high-power-density motor controllers and inverters for electric vehicles. The company, backed by Y Combinator, has raised $3.9 million from investors including Four Cities Capital and Zeno Ventures.[1]
Early life and education
Brake graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in Mechatronics Engineering, attending from 2019 to 2024. During his time at Waterloo, he held leadership roles on student design teams, serving as technical lead of the Formula Electric team from 2019 to 2024 and as a lead on the Vex Robotics team from 2016 to 2019.[2]
Career
Before founding Steinmetz, Brake accumulated experience at several prominent technology and automotive companies through co-op placements and internships. He worked at Ford in Waterloo in 2020, at both Tesla and Apple in 2021, at Parallel Systems in Los Angeles in 2022 and 2023, and at Neuralink in Fremont in 2023. At Tesla, he worked on drive inverter technology, and at Neuralink he worked on the implant team.
Brake met his co-founder, Ethan Childerhose, while both were interning at Neuralink. In 2024, they founded Steinmetz, named after the pioneering electrical engineer Charles Proteus Steinmetz. The company is headquartered in San Francisco.
Steinmetz develops motor controllers for high-performance electric vehicles, with a focus on power density. According to the company, its MC0-250 controller achieves a power density of 104 kW/L, which it compares favorably against competitors such as the Tesla Model 3 inverter (65 kW/L) and the Cascadia CM200DZ (57 kW/L). The company claims greater than 99% efficiency for its controllers and emphasizes features such as one-click auto-tuning and open-source firmware. Steinmetz's product line includes the MC0-250 and MC0-500 motor controllers, with a lower-power MC0-10 model aimed at robotics and automation applications expected in Q3 2026. The company states that its products are manufactured in the United States.[3]
In 2026, Brake and Childerhose were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Transportation & Aerospace category.
References
- ↑ "Steinmetz – Forbes Profile". 'Forbes}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Owen Brake – Personal Website". 'owenbrake.com}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Steinmetz – Next-Generation Motor Controllers". 'Steinmetz}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.