Community Events
November 25, 2025
Join SMU for a Community Chat with NEMO Industries Co-founder and CEO Daniel Liss
Written by Michael Cowden
A colorful serial entrepreneur, NEMO Industries Co-founder and CEO Daniel Liss has done everything from working for Hollywood star Sofia Vergara to building a venture-backed Instagram competitor Dispo. He is new to steel but not short on potentially transformative ideas.
The Chat will be on Wednesday, Dec. 3, at 11 am ET. The live webinar is free for anyone to attend. A recording will be available only to SMU subscribers. You can register here.
Why you should listen
NEMO plans to build a $3-billion granulated pig iron plant in Louisiana with annual capacity of 2.3 million metric tons per year. Liss and his co-founder, Michael DuBose, a long-time liquified natural gas (LNG) executive, aspire to bring the LNG midstream model to steel.
Partners include Cargill Metals, Lowercarbon Capital, Boxgroup, 776, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and former presidential candidate – someone who Liss also counts as a longtime friend. (Editor’s note: SMU reporter Ethan Bernard has the full details of the Louisiana project here.)
Construction is expected to start in 2027. And that’s just phase one of the project. What comes next?
What else we’ll discuss
How pig iron provides a window into our fraught geopolitics. It’s clear that global supply chains are riskier now than they have been in decades. Russia and Ukraine, two of the top sources of imported pig iron, remain at war. And tensions are rising between the US and Brazil, the only large-scale provider of pig iron left to the US market. (Europe, meanwhile, is competing with the US for access to Brazilian pig iron.)
Why metallics matter more than you think. As Liss sees it, pig iron – and the more sophisticated grades of steel that require it (e.g., plate for shipbuilding) – is a national security issue, especially in the event of a great-power conflict. It’s also an issue that just makes common sense to address domestically.
The competitive advantages of making it here. Making pig iron domestically makes sense because the US has abundant reserves of affordable natural gas. Tariffs? Don’t need them. Hypothetical carbon premium? Don’t need those either. NEMO contends its project will be profitable even in the absence of government support.
The role of tech in heavy industry. While pig iron is hardly a high-tech product, NEMO Industries plans to bring new technology – namely, cutting-edge AI – to the table to differentiate itself from its competitors. Generative AI might get more headlines. We’ll explore AI’s role in physical operations.
And of course we’ll take your questions, too. So don’t forget to bring some good ones to the Community Chat on Wednesday, Dec. 3, at 11 am ET.
