India imports an estimated 85–90% of its rare-earth magnet requirements.

That’s roughly 54,000 tonnes imported in FY25 alone.

Rare-earth metals sit inside every EV motor, wind turbine, missile, satellite, robotics system and medical device.

A rare-earth material is any material that contains or is derived from the rare-earth elements—a group of 17 metallic elements on the periodic table.

The most commercially important ones include: Neodymium (Nd), Praseodymium (Pr) – used in magnets and alloy, Dysprosium (Dy), Terbium (Tb), Samarium (Sm)

Geopolitics sent shockwaves

China controls much of the world’s rare-earth processing and magnet manufacturing capacity.

India remains heavily dependent.

Beginning in April 2025, China tightened export controls on several rare-earth elements.

Additional restrictions followed later in the year.

Shockwaves moved across North America, Europe and India overnight.

India has just woken up and is now incentivising rare-earth magnet manufacturing.

And here’s the irony.

India was best positioned all along

• Large rare-earth reserves sit across Odisha, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan.

• Monazite-rich mineral sands containing Neodymium (Nd), Praseodymium (Pr) and Samarium (Sm) are already present in India.

• Government institutions such as IREL, ISRO, DRDO, MIDHANI and BARC possess decades of metallurgical expertise.

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Three bets worth watching for Strategic Investors

Bet #1. Companies Cracking Rare-Earth Manufacturing Process

Mining was never the hard part.

The challenge was in the chemistry and metallurgy required to turn ore into usable products.

The bottleneck sat in the science in the middle i.e. Zero to One for commercial scale RE metal

Takes over 2 years of R&D

The industrial process climb looks like:

Oxide → Metal → Alloy → Magnet

Phase 0 Mining: Mineral sands extracted from coastal and inland deposits.

Phase 1 Separation & Refining: Oxides isolated and purified

Phase 2 Alloy Manufacturing Plant: Oxides turn into alloys via molten salt electrolysis

Phase 3 Magnet Manufacturing Line: Alloys decrepitation, milled and sintered into magnets

Phase 4 Testing & Assembly: High-grade RE magnets by cutting, coating, grading, and validation.

And the hard truth

Core process IP still sits with China and Japan.

India scientists must innovate, reverse-engineer, pursue tech transfer, or build JVs to close that gap.

Why India waited for decades?

For decades there was little incentive to build.

• No national mission

• Process IP was locked abroad

• Chinese magnets available at competitive price of $60 – 70/kg crushed the case for Rs 1,200 – 1,500 crore plant

As a result the market optimised for efficiency.

Geopolitics exposed the risk.

Our government has woken up

The delay is unfortunate.

But timing, as always, belongs to geopolitics.

The Rs 7,280 crore Rare-Earth Magnet PLI stands sanctioned:

• Capacity: 6,000 TPA of integrated rare-earth magnet manufacturing capacity

• Timeline: Over 7 years (2 years build + 5 years scale)

• Beneficiaries: Allocated to 5 companies via global bidding

• Real benefit is a sales-linked incentive, not a capex upfront (Rs 1,450 crore per company over five years)

An RFP was released in March 2026 inviting bids for 6,000 MTPA of integrated NdFeB magnet manufacturing capacity

More than 25 companies participated in the pre-bid process . Vedanta, Hindustan Zinc, Sona Comstar, JSW Group, NLC India, Reliance Industries, Adani Enterprises, Larsen & Toubro and more

Among startups, Founded in 2022, Entellus is building India’s first independent rare-earth midstream to supply NdPr metal, bonded powders, and strip cast alloys, the essential feedstock for NdFeB magnets used in EVs, wind turbines, defence, robotics, and industrial applications

The eventual winners may shape India’s rare-earth supply chain for the next decade.

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Bet #2. Rare-earth-free motors and components

Not every company is trying to secure more rare-earth supply.

Some are attempting to eliminate the dependency altogether.

Chara Technologies and Matel are developing rare-earth-free motor technologies for mobility and industrial applications, replacing critical materials with novel motor architectures, power electronics and software.

In a world where supply chains are strategic assets, engineering without the bottleneck can be just as valuable as owning it.

Bet #3. Rare-earth recovery through recycling

Recycling may become just as important.

Companies such as Attero are building capabilities to recover critical minerals and rare-earth elements from e-waste, batteries and discarded magnets.

As India’s EV and electronics ecosystem scales, urban mining could become an important domestic source of rare-earth supply.

The Material Sovereignty Playbook

This may look like Make in India. However, owning supply chain is actually Material Supremacy.

Countries that control critical materials, refining, alloys, magnets, recycling and alternatives increasingly control mobility, energy, aerospace and defence.

🧲 As an Investor, I’m watching companies solving for

• Companies Cracking Rare-Earth Manufacturing Process.

• Rare-earth-free motors and components.

• Rare-earth recovery through recycling

ONEST (Open Networks for Employment & Skilling Transformation) could be India’s next big digital infrastructure, after Aadhar, UPI, OCEN, and ONDC. When I heard about it from Gaurav Gupta, I was amazed by its potential to bridge India’s demographic divide.

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Here’s the problem: A local MSME owner needs 50 welders and electricians, but his job posters are stuck to a tree outside his house. Just a few hundred meters away, on a turn the owner never takes, an Industrial Training Institute(ITI) of skilled graduates is looking for work. They never meet.

600 million native-speaking Indians are not visible on any digital radar when it comes to jobs or skilling. Their achievements, aspirations, and even their needs are scattered, lost on paper resumes, WhatsApp groups, and posters on trees.

This is where the idea of “blue dots” comes in.

If you’ve ever used Google Maps, you know the power of a blue dot. It’s the tiny signal that says, “You are here.”

It turns every job seeker, every opportunity, and every benefit into a digital blue dot, instantly discoverable, verified, and trusted.

1. A student in Bihar creates a profile in his native language via voice.

2. The local ITI principal verifies it.

3. A small business owner discovers him instantly — pre-verified, ready to work.

And it’s already happening. ONEST is making this happen through Pilot programs with:

1. Department of Empowerment of People with Disabilities, Karnataka’s Skilling Department, and NSDC

2. Startups such as Local work (connecting MSMEs with candidates), Smartstaff (for government manufacturing workers) and PhysicsWallah (helping economically weaker section students become discoverable), TrueForSkill (AI-based local language assessments), Daria (digital remote work platform for women)

3. Caret Capital and it’s portfolio companies UnStop, Awign, Taggd

India’s demographic dividend is only as strong as our ability to make our people visible, trusted, and connected to what they need. The Blue Dot Framework is about putting every Indian on the map.

If you work in the social impact ecosystem, this is the moment to pay attention. The future of work in India might just be a blue dot away.

…

This blog is written in conversation with Gaurav Gupta, instrumental in framing the ONEST framework at the MicroVC summit by Headstart, an event I co-hosted.

If you’re building an impact startup or are an impact investor, feel free to reach me at SuperCapital (team@supercom.club) or on linkedin.

I played a small role as a Headstarte and I had the opportunity to be in the room as OG VCs shared their playbooks and emerging funds.

Here are some of my takeaways from the summit

1. Right structure is really horses for courses: It depends on your LP base, risk appetite. Some play it safe with regulated Cat-I or Cat-II AIFs. Others prefer more flexible, faster to set up structures like LLPs, syndicates and crowdfunds, despite regulatory grey areas.

2. GIFT City isn’t a hype: The Indian government’s regulatory certainty in GIFT City rivals that of Mauritius or Singapore. If you’re raising capital from LPs abroad, GIFT might be your best shot feels Siddarth, founder of 3one4 Capital.

3. Proprietary deal flow is short-lived. The real edge lies in using AI tools to see deals first at T0 and building trust early with founders, highlighted Pearl Agarwal. Eximius Ventures showed how AI-driven workflows help them go from CRM to term sheet in just 21 days.

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4. Aspirations of Tier 2/3 cities: Family offices with ample money and quality startups are emerging in atleast 30+ non-metro cities, said Neeraj Tyagi, CEO of We Founder Circle. Headstart has launched its Bharat Pitchathon 4.0 to enable funds beyond the metros.

5. Tag to Tap into Networks: Sarita Raichura, director at Blume Ventures suggests tagging your network repository by expertise, region, etc. This enables fast matchmaking for follow-on rounds, mentoring, and portfolio support.

Bonus: Underrated Support: Treat your founders equally, regardless of your cheque size, and just show up for them during low times.

All in all, it was a reminder that emerging fund managers are builders too. Builders of funds, of trust, of processes, of ecosystems.

. . .

I, Disha Sanghrajka, am a volunteer at Headstart, India’s largest startup community and an ex-VC at Inflexor Ventures. I help investors source quality startups, fund set-up, and close investments and fundraise follow-on capital/ exits for the porfolio.

.. on Substack or LinkedIn or Whatsapp if you are an emerging fund manager looking for funding/ investment support.

Last year I spoke to Payal Patel, founder of Agropak, who has invented proprietary zero-plastic packaging for cosmetic brands by processing coconut waste into leak-free containers

She started with a simple vision: solve the plastic waste problem.

When she started by supplying biodegradable solutions from different manufacturers, the restaurant owners complained that most biodegradable packaging leaked. Areca and bagasse were biodegradable, yes, but not water-resistant or sturdy.

Existing solutions weren’t functional. Instead of settling, she thought, I can fix this.

Most brands today use plastic, glass, or paper for primary packaging. And most biodegradable packaging materials available are wrapped with biofilms or aren’t actually zero plastic.

Further, brands use materials like PLA(Polylactic Acid), corn starch that look sustainable but aren’t. Without industrial composting at 80°C, they just break down into microplastics and turn into landfills.

Greenwashing was everywhere.

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So she rolled up her sleeves and went into the lab.

Drawing on her biotech background, Payal teamed up with a co-founder to create a completely new material, a durable bio-composite made from agricultural waste like coconut shells and bamboo.

But coconut was tough (literally)

Coconut shells are hard to mold. Payal recalls: “We were told by manufacturers — ‘just add 2% plasticizer, and you can get to market faster. But that wasn’t the point. We didn’t want a quicker product. We wanted the right one.”

Agropak invented a container with a screw-top mechanism, made with a proprietary compression-moulding technique. It is fully plant-based, and durable enough to pass for conventional packaging.

Why does this matter? Plastic contribute to about 60 percent of cosmetic packaging (Grandview Research 2023). And 95 percent of beauty packaging ends up in landfills or oceans (CosmeticsDesign. com).

With non-dilutive funding from Startup India and Startup Karnataka, Agropak is launching its first 100-piece production run and plans to scale to 1,000 units per day in the next six months.

Would you, as a brand, pay a bit more for packaging that breaks down naturally rather than lingering in our environment for centuries?

I know I would.

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If you are (coco)nuts about circularity and sustainability, reach out to payal@agropak.in or DM her on Linkedin

For VCs: Sustainable packaging sector saw investment in Cirkla(Z47, Stellaris, $3 million) and Bambrew (Blume, Blue Ashva, $7 million) — who’s next?

If you are a woman startup co-hashtag founder building something proprietary, write to me on dishasanghrajka@gmail.com or DM on my Linkedin to be covered.