Durham, North Carolina is better known for basketball and barbecue than rare-earth magnets, but Vulcan Elements is changing the map. Founded in January 2023, this isn’t a garage project, it’s a national security mission with a balance sheet. Co-founder and CEO John Maslin spent years managing billions for the U.S. Navy’s nuclear propulsion program. Co-founder and CTO Dr. Piotr Kulik built the first U.S. rare-earth magnetics lab in over two decades and drove DARPA programs like a man who doesn’t take “that’s impossible” for an answer. Together, they decided that letting China control over 90% of the world’s supply of neodymium-iron-boron magnets was like handing your opponent the only set of keys to the stadium.
Now they’ve locked down $65 million in Series A funding at a $250 million valuation. Altimeter Capital led the round, joined by One Investment Management, 1789 Capital, Ibex Investors, Newark Venture Partners, NVP Capital, The MBA Fund, and strategic returners. That pushes Vulcan Elements’ total raise north of $76 million, with earlier backing from Hivers & Strivers and FJ Labs and a U.S. Air Force SBIR Phase II award to boot. This isn’t speculative money, it’s capital aimed at scaling from a 10-metric-ton pilot facility in Research Triangle Park to hundreds of tonnes annually in the next two years, and a thousand-plus by decade’s end.
Their magnets aren’t toys. They are the high-energy-density, thermally stable, miniaturization-friendly kind you find in defense drones, naval propulsion systems, EV motors, robotics, semiconductor fabrication tools, and wind turbines. The Department of Defense is already a customer—Navy, Army, Air Force—with first deliveries starting this month. DOE’s Ames National Laboratory has validated their chemistry and processes. Every gram of raw material and every piece of equipment comes from U.S. and allied sources, which means their supply chain is as decoupled from Beijing as you can get without booking a ticket to another planet.
The team reads like a manufacturing all-star roster. COO Jake Bowles cut his teeth at SpaceX and Ursa Major. VP for Commercialization Scott Glover has advised on supply chain security at McKinsey. VP for R&D Joe Croteau brings 15 years in powder metallurgy. Chief of Staff Jonah Glick-Unterman handled congressional engagement for the Secretary of Defense. Add in Brad Gerstner of Altimeter as a board observer and Rajeev Misra of One Investment Management as an advisor, and you have capital, technical firepower, and policy savvy under one roof.
Vulcan Elements isn’t here to “catch up.” They are building the foundry for a new era of industrial independence. When the magnets powering your defense systems, EVs, and automation hubs are born in Durham instead of Dalian, you don’t just change a supply chain, you change the balance of leverage. And in the high-stakes arena of global tech, leverage is everything.
