Arafura Rare Earths eyes $100 million in export agency funding
Arafura Rare Earths has received a letter of interest from Australia’s export finance agency about potential funding for its Nolans project in the Northern Territory, which a source said would likely amount to around $100 million.
Export Finance Australia has provided a non-binding letter of interest for funding support for the project, Arafura – which is backed by billionaire Gina Rinehart – said in an exchange filing on Tuesday.
The potential funding is part of a Western push to develop rare earths supply chains with international partners outside of top producer China. Australia’s resources minister last week said the government was considering price floors to support critical minerals projects, including for rare earths.
“We will now be advancing due diligence with both of these parties,” Arafura’s CEO Darryl Cuzzubbo said.
The funding, which is yet to be decided on but is likely to be in the vicinity of $100 million, would mean that Arafura would be able to “materially close” a cornerstone equity target that is 60% of the $775 million total equity requirement, the source said.
The backing follows Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s announcement last year that Australia would provide up to A$840 million ($547.85 million) for Nolans, the first combined rare earths mine and refinery in the Northern Territory.
The project has also entered an appraisal phase for potential equity investment from Germany’s Raw Materials Fund after being referred by the country’s Interministerial Committee last month.
Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting is Arafura’s largest shareholder with an 8.57% stake, per LSEG data.
Shares of the company were down 2.4% at A$0.2 as of 0258 GMT, while the broader mining sub-index fell 0.2%.
($1 = 1.5333 Australian dollars)
(By Melanie Burton and Nikita Maria Jino; Editing by Sonia Cheema)
US rare earth magnet startup raises $65M to scale up production
Vulcan Elements, a US-based rare earth magnet startup, has raised $65 million in Series A funding to support its planned buildout of a commercial-scale facility in Durham, North Carolina.
The funding is led by Altimeter Capital, a technology investment firm with over $12 billion in assets under management. The funding round included significant participation from One Investment Management, founded by Rajeev Misra, the former CEO of SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund.
In a press release dated Aug. 11, Vulcan said the investment will help accelerate its expansion to commercial scale to meet rapidly growing market demand—a critical milestone toward fully on-shoring the rare earth magnet supply chain.
The North Carolina-based company is producing high-performance rare earth magnets at its manufacturing plant located in Research Triangle Park. The 21,000-square-foot facility was launched in March to pilot the production of permanent sintered neodymium iron boron magnets, the highest energy product of any permanent magnet material on the market today.
According to Vulcan, its products are able to meet requirements across several advanced defense and commercial applications—from drones and semiconductor fabrication equipment to hard disk drives, robotics and automotives.
With the new funding, the company said it will begin to scale its production of magnets 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,” Vulcan Elements CEO John Maslin said in the press release.
Decoupled from China
Maslin, a former financial manager in the Navy, described rare earth magnets as “essential invisible building blocks” of the US economy, as they are essential to nearly every advanced technology.
However, China currently manufactures over 90 % of the global supply, while the US makes less than 1%—leaving the latter vulnerable to having its economy frozen and its military production lines shut off by a Chinese export ban.
Vulcan, with eyes on “bringing this supply chain back home,” notes that its production process is entirely decoupled from China; All of its material and equipment is sourced from the US and its allies, ensuring complete traceability and transparency.
Since its founding in 2023, Vulcan’s magnet chemistry and process have been validated by the Department of Energy’s Ames National Laboratory, and its production process has received support from the Department of Defense—including contracts across the Air Force, Army and Navy, the company said.
Vulcan’s chief technology officer, Dr. Piotr Kulik, was the first to open a US rare earth magnetics lab in two decades, it added.
“Vulcan has already emerged as a best-in-class manufacturer within two years of incorporation,” Altimeter CEO Brad Gerstner commented on its investment in Vulcan.
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