By Roxana Tiron
(Bloomberg Government) — US rare-earths magnet maker Vulcan Elements said on Monday it raised $65 million in a series A funding round. The funding round was led by Altimeter Capital with significant participation from One Investment Management, according to a statement by the Durham, N.C. -based company. The investment is intended to accelerate Vulcan’s expansion to commercial scale. The fresh funding comes as the Trump administration and Congress eye new measures to support domestic production of rare-earth magnets, which are crucial for defense manufacturing. The Senate Armed Services Committee in its version of the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill included a $4 million authorization to buy rare-earth magnets manufactured in Durham.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has pursued several measures to support critical mineral production, including through a five-year rare-earth investments strategy launched under the Biden administration. The US dependence on rare-earth minerals, for autos and data centers as well as defense equipment, was exposed as a key vulnerability when Beijing cut off supplies this spring in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Under the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, during Trump’s first term, weapons systems can’t be made with magnets containing “material mined, refined, separated, melted” by China starting in 2027.
With its Series A funding, Vulcan will begin to boost production to several hundred metric tonnes annually in the next few years and several thousand tonnes by the end of this decade. “This Series A enables Vulcan to scale with the speed and seriousness that this moment and the nation demand,” said Vulcan Elements CEO John Maslin in the statement. “With Altimeter, OneIM, and others, we’ve brought together investors who understand what it takes to build enduring American industrial champions.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Roxana Tiron in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editors responsible for this story: John Hewitt Jones at [email protected]; Bennett Roth at [email protected]
