At a glance
Publicly launched: 2023
Headquarters: Boulder, Colorado
Technology: Immobilized proteins and column chromatography for rare earth refining
Founder: Nathan Ratledge
Funding or notable partners: More than $60 million from Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, DCVC, IQT, and other investors
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nathan Ratledge had a late-night phone call with a higher-up at the electric-car maker Tesla who was giving a presentation at the Stanford Graduate School of Business the following day. The Tesla employee said that the thing that kept him up at night was that there might not be enough minerals to make Tesla’s products.
At the time, Ratledge was working on his PhD in environment and resources at Stanford University—a degree he pursued after 15 years of working in energy technology—but he was itching to start a company.
