Hertha Metals raises $17M seed to make high-purity iron in the US
What's the deal? Hertha MetalsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → raised $17 million in seed funding to produce high-purity iron domestically, aiming to start before a January 2027 US defense deadline. Khosla Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Fellows, Pear VC, and Clean Energy VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → backed the round.
Why the material matters: High-purity iron is essential for neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnets, which power electric vehicle motors, renewable energy infrastructure, and defense systems. "Today, 90% of high-purity iron is produced in China," said founder Laureen Meroueh, an MIT-trained engineer who started the company in 2022.
Why now? The Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement takes effect in January 2027, banning Chinese rare earth magnets and their raw materials in covered defense systems. Policy has focused on securing rare earths like neodymium; high-purity iron, needed for the alloy stage, has drawn less attention.
The product: Hertha's Flex-HERS process pairs electric arc furnace technology with natural gas or hydrogen, letting it process low-grade domestic ore that blast furnaces cannot handle economically. The funding backed a one-ton-per-day pilot plant in Conroe, Texas, that began operating in 2024, sourcing ore from Minnesota.
What's the endgame? The company plans a commercial facility with annual capacity above 9,000 tons, and a long-term target of 500,000 tons per year — matching existing US steel micro-mills. "In just 12 months, we progressed from lab testing to continuous production of several tons per day," Meroueh said.
What could go wrong? Analysts warn high-purity iron is only one link. Magnet alloy production, sintering, heavy rare earth processing, and magnet manufacturing remain heavily reliant on Chinese capacity. As rare earth platform REEx put it: "The magnet supply chain is not a single mine."
The signal: At $17 million, Hertha's raise sits in the 98th percentile of all US energy seed rounds on record — a sign investors are pricing in urgency around supply-chain gaps that policy alone has yet to close.
Read more: WeDoAny
Image credit: Hertha Metals
