I'm not sure the criticism at UBeam (especially at the CEO) is all that fair. Shouldn't we be encouraging moon-shoots that look impossible? Isn't that the point of VC funds? I'd rather see 100 UBeams than one more social media network or adtech company getting funding.
VCs tend to invest in the team over the tech. In this case you have a young woman leading the team, which (sadly) looks great for your portfolio and makes it easier to raise the capital needed to make progress on tough engineering issues. Despite what she says, she isn't an engineer so she's not solving the hard problem. Actually she did quite a good job to raise 30m USD on basically nothing, it's not really her fault the physics doesn't work out.
The problem is that they haven't built up any useful IP here to pivot with, it's fine if they said hey we failed at wireless charging at 10 feet, but we made 50% gains in improved efficiency of Qi chargers and we're going to still build the next gen of wireless chargers. But they haven't managed that.
I remember people saying capacitive touch display is impossible on mobile devices because "physics". Not everyone and not always is right when they cite physics. Ubeam seems like a more clear case of physical impossibility, but who knows maybe someone improves this tech at some point. That probably won't be Ubeam though, the DNA of this company already seems to be broken.
VCs tend to invest in the team over the tech. In this case you have a young woman leading the team, which (sadly) looks great for your portfolio and makes it easier to raise the capital needed to make progress on tough engineering issues. Despite what she says, she isn't an engineer so she's not solving the hard problem. Actually she did quite a good job to raise 30m USD on basically nothing, it's not really her fault the physics doesn't work out.
The problem is that they haven't built up any useful IP here to pivot with, it's fine if they said hey we failed at wireless charging at 10 feet, but we made 50% gains in improved efficiency of Qi chargers and we're going to still build the next gen of wireless chargers. But they haven't managed that.