Highlights

• Noveon Magnetics is rebuilding U.S. industrial capability by producing high-performance sintered NdFeB magnets with a focus on recycling and sustainability.
• The company has secured strategic partnerships with major manufacturers like General Motors, Nidec, and ABB.
• Noveon signals a credible domestic alternative to Chinese magnet production.
• The company represents a critical step in national security, energy transition, and industrial revival.
• Noveon is establishing a robust, local rare earth magnet manufacturing ecosystem.

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Walk the factory floor in San Marcos, Texas, and you’ll see more than parts moving down a line—you’ll see a strategic pivot. Noveon Magnetics (opens in a new tab) isn’t just making neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets; it’s rebuilding an industrial muscle the U.S. let atrophy. In a world where China controls approximately 90%+ of rare-earth magnet production, Noveon’s lines sound like a long-overdue comeback.

Who/When: From Urban Mining to National Mission

Born in 2014 as Urban Mining Company, the team set out to prove the U.S. could make high-performance magnets again—and do it cleaner. In May 2022, the company rebranded to Noveon Magnetics, moved into a 100,000+ sq. ft. plant in San Marcos, TX, and set the goalposts: commercial-scale, American-made sintered NdFeB magnets. CEO Scott Dunn and a bench of magnetics lifers (including commercial lead Peter Afiuny and CFO Viji Subramanyam) built around one obsessive idea: break dependence by mastering the hardest part of the chain.

What: Sintered NdFeB—But Cleaner, Faster, Closer

Sintered NdFeB drives EV traction motors, wind turbines, industrial robots, MRI systems, and defense actuators. Noveon’s flagship EcoFlux™ line aims to deliver that performance while using ~20% less heavy rare earths (Dy/Tb) — company-claimed — easing cost and choke-point risk. The twist is “magnet-to-magnet”: demagnetize end-of-life magnets, mill to powder, tune chemistry, then press and sinter—no chemical reversion to oxides. Result: big energy savings, less hazardous waste, and a path to scale without waiting on every upstream refinery.

Under the hood, Noveon leans on grain-boundary engineering to tune microstructure and hit tight specs despite scrap variability. Translation: strong magnets with fewer vulnerable inputs—and a cleaner lifecycle.

Capacity: From Proof to Presence

The San Marcos facility has been ramping toward ~2,000 tpa of magnet material (company target)—small versus China’s giants, but non-trivial for a first domestic foothold. The site is designed with runway to ~10,000 tpa over time (a plan, contingent on demand and offtakes). Is it enough to dent China’s dominance? Not today. Is it the first credible U.S. presence in sintered NdFeB at scale in decades? Absolutely.

Public–Private Fuel, Strategic Outcomes

This is heavy industry—capital-intensive and unforgiving. Noveon’s funding blends venture capital (including a $75M Series B) and U.S. Department of Defense support (notably a Defense Production Act Title III award) that kept teams intact and equipment moving through the worst shocks. The logic: magnets are “essential components” across the defense stack; a single point of failure in China is untenable. Grants de-risked the tech; private capital scaled the plant. That’s industrial policy doing its job.

Customers: Validation You Can Ship

In 2025, Noveon announced multi-year agreements with:

• General Motors — magnets for full-size trucks and SUVs (from EV traction to high-reliability subsystems). First deliveries began mid-year.
• Nidec — the world’s largest motor maker—five-year offtake >1,000 tons for U.S. operations across industrial and defense-adjacent uses.
• ABB — a multi-year pact to feed North American industrial motors, ramping to up to 100% of certain large-motor magnet parts at a U.S. plant by 2026.

These aren’t science-fair ribbons. They’re production commitments from blue-chip manufacturers who obsess over quality, cost, and volume. Subtext: a real domestic option now exists.

Why It Matters: Beyond Slogans

• National security. Beginning Jan 1, 2027, the DoD is prohibited from procuring certain items that contain covered magnets sourced from China. Someone has to fill that void with parts that meet aerospace/defense qual; Noveon is among the only American shops shipping sintered NdFeB at industrial scale today.
• Energy transition. EVs and wind will double or triple magnet demand this decade. If the West can’t localize magnets, electrification bottlenecks on Beijing’s terms. Every ton Noveon produces softens that dependence while cutting lifecycle footprint via recycling.
• Industrial revival. Rare-earth magnets are muscle memory the U.S. lost. Bringing it back takes process IP, materials talent, and stubborn capital. Noveon’s line in Texas is a humming rebuttal to the idea that advanced manufacturing can’t live here.

Where It Fits: The Ex-China Chain

A resilient “mine-to-magnet” outside China needs multiple actors: upstream (e.g., MP Materials, Lynas), midstream metals/alloys, and downstream magnet manufacturing/recycling. Noveon is the downstream anchor—where upstream work becomes a motor, turbine, or guidance fin. As allied refining comes online in the U.S./EU, Noveon’s blend of recycled + primary feedstock can flex while holding performance.

The Hard Questions (and Honest Answers)

• Scale vs. China: 2,000 tpa ≠ 20,000. True—and that’s why offtakes matter. Contracts with GM, Nidec, ABB fund the capex to climb. Stair-steps, not moonshots.
• Cost discipline: Cleaner processes still have to win on unit economics. The bet: energy/chemicals saved, less Dy/Tb, and shorter logistics offset scale disadvantages. The test that counts: repeat orders.
• Supply volatility: Recycling helps, but the system still needs NdPr, Dy, Tb. Hence coordinated upstream build-out in the U.S., Australia, EU—and why proximity to customers (and qual history) is a moat when shortages bite.
• Competition: MP’s Texas magnet plant is coming; Apple’s multi-hundred-million-dollar deal is real; Japanese/European players aren’t asleep. Good. The West needs several winners. Today, Noveon’s edge is simple: they are producing.

The Tell

If you want to know whether America is serious about supply-chain sovereignty, don’t listen for speeches. Listen for furnaces. In San Marcos, they’re running—pressing and sintering the tiny cores that spin an economy. Noveon Magnetics isn’t the end of the story; it’s the chapter where the U.S. stops narrating dependency and starts manufacturing its way out of it.

At Noveon, the production lines represent more than magnets—they represent American innovation, advanced manufacturing, and a commitment to reducing global reliance on foreign supply chains.

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