Rara Factory, funding to accelerate new materials
Ca' Foscari spin-off integrates artificial intelligence with experimental physics to find alternatives to rare earths
by Barbara Ganz
Key points
A capital injection to expand the high-productivity experimental capabilities of Rara Factory, a spin-off (founded in 2024 by four professors from Ca' Foscari University Venice) deep-tech company that accelerates the discovery of new alternative materials to rare earths through physics-driven artificial intelligence.
Capital injection
The company raised EUR 3.2 million in the investment round supported by Primo Capital, through the Primo Climate fund, Cdp Venture Capital SgrR through the Accelerators Fund, and a group of business angels. The deal is for targeted investments in laboratory infrastructure and advanced instrumentation for the synthesis and full characterisation of new alternative materials for industrial applications in strategic sectors such as energy, mobility, and aerospace, removing dependence on rare earths and other critical materials. "The main example is that of magnets,' explains Stefano Bonetti, lead founder and professor of Experimental Physics of Matter, 'The current ones contain Neodymium, on which China has a monopoly. Besides being a rare earth, its extraction is extremely polluting. If prices then rise, for some Italian and European companies that use them, the risk is to go out of business'.
L’innovazione
Rara Factory has developed a proprietary platform that integrates artificial intelligence with experimental materials physics. 'To put it simply, you take elements from the table of elements and combine them in the form of alloys with desired properties, e.g. magnetic, electrical or optical,' Bonetti explains. Unlike purely computational approaches, the scientists at Rara Factory are concerned with generating real experimental data on a large scale, enabling rapid iteration and validation cycles. To date, almost 10,000 new materials have been created and tested, which form the basis for the training of artificial intelligence models: 'We count, thanks to this injection of capital, on quickly reaching 30,000, a threshold at which AI can begin to be proactive, suggesting new paths'. In 2024, the start-up was selected among the five participants in the Motor Valley Accelerator in Modena to develop solutions for the automotive and mobility sectors, confirming itself as one of the most promising realities in the programme. Rara Factory has already obtained its first commercial contract and signed cooperation agreements with Italian and international companies, mainly in the automotive sector. Italian and international patents have been applied for: among the collaborations started is the one with STMicroelectronics.
About ten people work in the laboratories, including some of the first graduates and thesis students of the first physics engineering course started in Venice and coordinated by Bonetti himself.
The Outlook
Italian and international patents have been applied for for the working method: among the collaborations initiated is one with ST Microelectronics. "With over a hundred materials synthesised and characterised every day, measuring all their properties relevant to industrial use, we have provided a scientific answer for concrete industrial application. Our proprietary dataset will soon be ready to meet the growing demand for alternatives to rare earths and other critical raw materials in strategic industrial sectors,' says Michele Bugliesi, founder, professor of Computer Science and former rector of Ca' Foscari.
