Solcoa Raises $75M to Build a U.S. Rare Earth Metal Plant

Solcoa, an Alameda, California startup that has invented a new way to turn rare earth oxides into metal, has raised $75 million. Bain Capital Ventures led the round, which combines $45 million in equity with $30 million in debt and equipment financing anchored by J.P. Morgan.

Gigascale Capital, Long Journey and Felicis participated, along with Figma CEO Dylan Field and a group of defense and technology executives.

The Metallization Bottleneck

The United States has spent years trying to rebuild a rare earth supply chain, but the hardest step is metallization: converting mined and refined oxides into the metal that goes into permanent magnets. That step is dominated by China and traditionally runs on molten-salt electrolysis, which releases fluoride gases.

Solcoa's process uses halide-free metallization chemistry that the company says produces no harmful emissions or fluoride gases.

"You will not beat China by copying China. The last time America invented a fundamentally new way to make a primary metal was with titanium in the 1940s," said founder and CEO Hooman Reza Nezhad.

A Nevada Plant

The funding will build and commission Solcoa One, a facility in Nevada designed to produce 500 tonnes of rare earth metal a year, enough for roughly one million electric vehicle magnets.

Money also goes toward expanding reactor manufacturing at the company's Alameda site and growing its engineering and research teams.

Solcoa is targeting defense contractors and manufacturers that need DFARS-compliant material, along with customers in robotics and electrification. Dealroom framed the raise around building rare earth metal capacity outside China.

Why Investors Are In

"Solcoa closes that gap with a process invented and proven on U.S. soil, at a scale that actually matters," said Alysaa Co of Bain Capital Ventures.

The mix of venture equity and bank-anchored debt reflects what the company is actually building: a chemical plant, not software. Equipment financing is the standard way to fund that kind of capital expense without diluting early shareholders.

Why It Matters

Rare earth magnets sit inside electric motors, wind turbines, robots and defense systems, and export controls have repeatedly exposed how concentrated their supply is. Most U.S. efforts have focused on mining, which does not solve the processing gap.

At 500 tonnes a year, Solcoa One is a first plant rather than a replacement for Chinese capacity. The test is whether a process that works in Alameda reactors holds up at industrial scale in Nevada.

Source

Business Wire — "Solcoa Announces $75M to Scale America's First New Metalmaking Process in 80 Years"