Rare-earth metal extraction from magnet waste at scale
Solcoa extracts high-purity rare-earth metals from spent magnets using a proprietary process designed to be faster and lower-cost than conventional refining. The tech stack (Python, MATLAB, ICP-MS, Thermo-Calc, FactSage) reflects a materials-science-heavy operation focused on process modeling and analytical chemistry. Early-stage hiring is concentrated in engineering (6 roles) with minimal sales presence, typical of a pre-commercial hardware startup still in reactor design and pilot scale-up.
Solcoa, founded in 2024 and based in San Francisco, processes magnet waste into rare-earth metals for industrial customers. The company is pre-revenue and early-stage, with 11–50 employees distributed across engineering, operations, and manufacturing functions. Current work centers on reactor subsystem design, pilot-to-demonstration plant scale-up, and building a feedstock collection program. Pain points cluster around supply-chain stability, pilot-scale reproducibility, and cost optimization — the typical bottlenecks for hard-tech companies moving from bench experiments to production viability.
Reactor design, scale-up from pilot to demonstration plant, furnace system development, and building a magnet feedstock collection network. Current focus: kinetics experiments, equipment specification, and production-line commissioning.
Python, MATLAB, ICP-MS (analytical chemistry), Thermo-Calc and FactSage (materials thermodynamics), plus Fusion 360 and SolidWorks for CAD. No cloud or web infrastructure in the top 30.
Other companies in the same industry, closest in size