Hertha Metals Raises $133.65M to Make High-Purity Iron for U.S. Magnets

Hertha Metals, a Conroe, Texas company that has rebuilt how iron is made, has raised a $133.65 million Series A co-led by Khosla Ventures and Doerr Capital.

The round includes $65 million in equity from the U.S. government through the IBAS program, alongside CEV, Pear Ventures, Gates Frontier, the Niterra SUISO no MORI Fund, Toyota Ventures and Siemens Financial Services.

One Step Instead of Many

Traditional steelmaking runs ore through a multi-stage process anchored by the blast furnace, a design largely unchanged for over a century and one of the largest industrial sources of carbon emissions.

Hertha's Flex-HERS process replaces that chain with a single-step reactor that handles any grade of iron ore and can use natural gas or hydrogen as the reductant. The company reports 25% lower production costs and 50% lower emissions, rising to 98% when run on hydrogen.

"Hertha has cracked what the steel industry has chased for decades: iron and steel in one step, below blast-furnace cost," said Rajesh Swaminathan of Khosla Ventures.

Iron for Magnets

The immediate target is not construction steel but high-purity iron for rare earth permanent magnets, the components inside electric motors, defense systems and industrial robots. The United States has almost no domestic supply of magnet-grade iron.

Hertha's Pi100 pilot facility produces 360 tons a year. The funding will build Hertha Chalyx, a commercial plant breaking ground in 2026 that is designed for 10,000 tonnes annually of steel-grade and magnet-grade high-purity iron.

"Hertha Chalyx closes that gap. We are building the supply chain this country needs," said founder and CEO Dr. Laureen Meroueh.

Why the Government Is In

The $65 million federal equity stake through IBAS reflects how seriously Washington now treats magnet supply chains, where processing capacity sits overwhelmingly in China.

Mining Technology reported the raise as funding for a U.S. iron plant.

Why It Matters

Decarbonizing steel and rebuilding magnet supply chains are usually treated as separate problems. Hertha is pitching one process that addresses both, with the higher-margin magnet market funding the climb toward commodity scale.

Industrial processes are unforgiving at scale, and moving from 360 tons to 10,000 is where most novel metallurgy stalls. That transition is what this round buys.

Source

Business Wire — "Hertha Metals Secures $133.65M Series A to Produce High-Purity Iron for Domestic Rare Earth Magnets"