A little-known startup making a product most people have never heard of has become one of the more remarkable stories in private markets.

Vulcan Elements’ private-market price has surged more than 3,000% in a year — and Trump’s push to rebuild America’s rare-earth supply chain is a big reason why.

Vulcan Elements, a North Carolina manufacturer of rare-earth magnets, is now being valued at levels that would have seemed extraordinary just a year ago. Forge Global currently puts the company’s derived price at $90.25 a share and shows a 3,146.40% change in one year.

There is an important caveat: Vulcan is private. There is no public stock price or continuously traded market establishing what investors could actually pay for its shares. Forge’s "Forge Price" is a derived private-market valuation indicator, not the equivalent of a Nasdaq closing price.

A year ago, Vulcan was a young industrial startup that had just raised $65 million in a Series A led by Altimeter Capital. The company said the financing would help scale U.S. production of high-performance rare-earth magnets. 

Investors are reportedly discussing the company at a dramatically different scale. In March, Axios reported that Vulcan was seeking $550 million at a $2 billion valuation — roughly eight times the valuation attached to its 2025 financing. 

What Vulcan Makes — and Why the U.S. Government Is Interested

Vulcan makes neodymium-iron-boron, or NdFeB, magnets, critical components in electric motors, drones, robotics and military systems. Their supply chain is also heavily dominated by China. That made Vulcan a natural fit for President Donald Trump’s effort to rebuild domestic critical-mineral and defense supply chains.

In November 2025, Vulcan and ReElement Technologies announced a $1.4 billion partnership with the U.S. government to expand a vertically integrated American rare-earth magnet supply chain. The plan includes a 10,000-metric-ton magnet facility.

The government involvement goes beyond a traditional grant or procurement contract. According to ProPublica, the Pentagon agreed to provide Vulcan with $620 million in financing, while the Commerce Department was to provide $50 million in incentives and take a $50 million equity stake.

There is also a personal Trump connection: Donald Trump Jr.’s investment firm, 1789 Capital, backed Vulcan. This has drawn scrutiny because the investment preceded the company’s major government financing and equity deal.

For private-market investors, the bigger question is what Vulcan is actually worth. The bullish case is straightforward: Washington wants to reduce dependence on China, rare-earth magnets are strategically important, and Vulcan has secured extraordinary government backing to build domestic capacity.

But building that capacity will take years. Reuters reported in July that the U.S. remains far from eliminating its dependence on Chinese critical minerals by the administration’s January 2027 target. Vulcan’s planned large-scale North Carolina facility is not expected to open until 2030. 

That leaves investors pricing a bet on American industrial policy and the domestic rare-earth industry.

Vulcan Elements may still be a company most people have never heard of. But Washington clearly has. And private-market investors are betting that the rest of the market eventually will, too.

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