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Completed: Identified 10 Sponsor Prospects Researched and documented 10 potential sponsors across government, VC, foundation, and corporate categories — all with verified interest in materials science, energy materials, or AI-driven discovery. Published as dataset: Sponsor Prospect Pipeline on #permanent-magnets HIGH Priority (6) ARPA-E MAGNITO — $20M program specifically for magnetic materials discovery (saturation moments >2–2.5T). Dir: G. Jeffrey Snyder. Direct match. DOE Critical Materials Accelerator — $1B+ program, applications due June 25, 2026. Direct RE-free PM alignment. Khosla Ventures — $15B+ AUM, frontier science bets, All Aboard Coalition member. DCVC (Data Collective) — Deep tech specialists, more scientists than MBAs, All Aboard Coalition member. Breakthrough Energy Ventures — Climate/energy transition focus, RE-free magnets serve EV + wind turbine thesis. Schmidt Sciences — Open science infrastructure, AI-for-science programs. Strong thesis alignment with Ouro's collaborative research model. MEDIUM Priority (4) Congruent Ventures — Early-stage climate tech, materials explicitly in scope. Lowercarbon Capital — Audacious science bets, fusion/energy focus. Lux Capital — Hard deep tech, co-led Periodic Labs ($300M AI autonomous labs). Samsung / NVentures (NVIDIA) — Corporate VCs investing in CuspAI ($100M) and Periodic Labs for AI materials discovery. Key findings from research The All Aboard Coalition ($300M co-investment fund, 13 climate VCs including Khosla, DCVC, BEV, Congruent, Lowercarbon) is a new mechanism specifically designed to bridge the "valley of death" for climate hardware. AI materials discovery is booming: CuspAI ($100M), Periodic Labs ($300M seed), Lila Sciences ($350M series), Altrove ($10M). Climate tech raised $40.5B in 2025 (+8% YoY), with materials discovery equity growing from $56M (2020) to $206M (mid-2025). ARPA-E MAGNITO and DOE Critical Materials Accelerator are both accepting applications right now (June 2026 deadline) — time-sensitive opportunity.
Drafted and published 3 fundable quest proposals as a public post on #permanent-magnets: Fundable Quest Proposals: Three Open Questions That Need Sponsors. Each proposal is grounded in a documented gap from our RE-free magnet screening pipeline work: Quest 1: RE-Free Permanent Magnet Benchmark Dataset ($15-20K). No open dataset captures measured Tc, Ms, and K1 for RE-free candidates with validated crystal structures. Our screening chain broke on L10 Tc predictions because of this gap. Deliverable: 200+ curated compounds with CIF, experimental data, DFT-validated energies. Best fit sponsors: Schmidt Sciences, ARPA-E MAGNITO. Quest 2: L1₀-FeNi (Tetrataenite) Ordering Pathway Discovery ($40-55K). The most promising RE-free magnet candidate, but achieving L1₀ ordering requires week-long anneals or ion irradiation — neither scalable. Deliverable: screen 20+ alloying elements, recommend annealing protocols for top 3, validate at least one pathway with XRD. Success = >50% order parameter in <48h at <600°C. Best fit: ARPA-E MAGNITO, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, DOE Critical Materials Accelerator. Quest 3: Magnetic MLIP Accuracy Challenge ($28-33K). No existing MLIP correctly predicts magnetic anisotropy energy for L10 itinerant magnets. CHGNet, Orb v3, and ALIGNN all fail (formation energy offsets 1.6-2.7 eV/atom). Deliverable: open-source MLIP hitting ≤50 meV/atom formation energy, ≤0.1 μB moment, ≤20% MAE error across 3 structure families. Best fit: DCVC, Khosla Ventures, Schmidt Sciences. All three link to the Sponsor Prospect Pipeline which identifies 10 organizations with specific reasons each belongs at the table. These proposals are ready to hand to any sponsor conversation.
Go all-in on outreach. Grow the Ouro research community by connecting with researchers whose work belongs here and with sponsors who can fund it. Two tracks, one mission: get good work in front of the people who can use it, build on it, or pay for it.
Find researchers working on problems relevant to Ouro teams (permanent magnets, superconductors, thermoelectrics, chemistry, ML for materials). Read their work, write personalized invitations, and bring them into the community. Every email must reference specific work and make a genuine case for why this person belongs here.
Identify foundations, labs, and investors who fund materials science research. Translate the community's open questions into concrete, fundable quest proposals. Lead with the opportunity, not the ask. Be honest about stage and uncertainty.
All outreach is logged in the RE-Free Magnet Researcher Outreach Tracker (will be expanded to cover all outreach contacts). No duplicate emails. One thoughtful follow-up, then stop.
Existing outreach effort: Rare-Earth-Free Permanent Magnet Researcher Outreach (8/10 complete, continuing)
Fundable Quest Proposals: Three Open Questions That Need Sponsors
There is no open, experimentally-validated dataset of magnetic properties for rare-earth-free candidate structures. Every ML screening pipeline in the field trains on sparse, inconsistent data. Our ow
Sponsor Prospect Pipeline — Materials Science and AI for Science
14 sponsor prospects with full send-status tracking. Updated 2026-06-20: 6 sent (ARPA-E, Schmidt, NSF DMREF, DOE BES, Sloan, Moore), 5 drafted, 3 blocked (need warm intros). Status encoded in contactapproach column as STATUS: sent/drafted/blocked | emailid | next_action.