Industrial Vanguard Vol. 33

Week of August 11, 2025

Author

Joe Tenbusch
August 15, 2025

Introduction

Critical minerals policy and procurement took center stage this week: New Jersey’s $875M PFAS settlement with DuPont, Corteva, and Chemours underscores rising environmental liabilities; meanwhile, automakers moved to de-risk magnets with GM’s domestic supply deal with Noveon and fresh capital for U.S. rare-earth players. On energy, the data-center surge is lifting power bills and forcing creative procurement—from Detroit startups brokering utility-backed efficiency to Europe’s heat-pump blitz—while a new U.S. budget law is already reshaping incentives. On the frontier, GPT-5 rolled out in ChatGPT, quantum and custom silicon funding stayed hot, and factory modernization drew billions—headlined by GE Appliances’ $3B U.S. expansion. Finally, markets processed an unusual bid (Perplexity’s $34.5B offer for Chrome) and policy shifts that could open more retirement capital to private markets.

Materials

  • PFAS settlement: DuPont, Corteva, and Chemours will pay $875M to New Jersey to resolve PFAS claims. Read more.

  • Lithium market: Signs of a supply/demand “rebalancing” emerge after a roller-coaster two years. Read more.

  • GM x Noveon: Long-term domestic magnet sourcing to reduce China risk. Read more.

  • U.S. magnet capacity: Rare-earth magnet maker raises $65M to scale U.S. production. Read more.

  • Battery recycling & extraction tech: DISA Technologies closes $30M Series A2 to advance materials recovery. Read more.

Energy

  • Detroit efficiency startup: New model channels utility dollars to cut household upgrade costs—scaling demand-side resources for the AI era. Read more.

  • Power prices & AI: Data-center buildout is pushing electricity costs higher for many customers. Read more.

  • Nuclear fuel onshoring: Peter Thiel backs General Matter to rebuild U.S. nuclear-fuel supply. Read more.

  • Heat-pump scale-up: Sweden’s Aira raises €150M to expand European deployments. Read more.

  • Policy tailwinds: A new U.S. budget law is already shifting the energy economy’s incentives and timelines. Read more.

  • Aviation fuels: Why Southwest sold its biofuels business—and what it signals for SAF economics. Read more.

Design & Development

  • Quantum compute bottlenecks: QuamCore raises $26M to tackle scaling limits. Read more.

  • Chipmaking & water: Semiconductors’ ultrapure-water and sustainability challenges intensify. Read more.

  • GPT-5 arrives: OpenAI’s latest release upgrades ChatGPT’s capabilities and toolchain. Read more.

  • Defense chips: How Northrop’s in-house “chip shop” fits next-gen systems. Read more.

  • Alt-GPU ecosystem: Rivos seeks up to $500M to challenge incumbents. Read more.

  • Quantum install: Oxford Ionics deploys a system at the U.K.’s NQCC. Read more.

  • Custom silicon: Celera Semiconductor raises $20M to scale mixed-signal designs. Read more.

Manufacturing

  • Aero supply chain: JEH Aerospace lands $11M Series A to expand precision manufacturing. Read more.

  • Robotics safety: FORT Robotics adds $18.9M to boost functional safety for autonomous systems. Read more.

  • Connected work: Squint raises $40M (valued at $265M) to modernize frontline manufacturing. Read more.

  • Domestic capacity: GE Appliances commits $3B across Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama. Read more.

Supply Chain & Logistics

  • Planning & visibility: Lyric raises $43.5M Series B for supply-chain tech. Read more.

  • Autonomy leadership: Former Cruise engineering chief joins Kodiak’s board. Read more.

  • Freight networks: GoodShip closes $25M Series B to expand TMS + carrier analytics. Read more.

Recycling

  • Plastics: A Boston startup scales novel processes to boost U.S. plastic recycling rates. Read more.

Venture Capital & Private Equity

  • What investors want: A practical primer on tech due diligence for venture deals. Read more.

  • Retirement access: Executive order opens a path for 401(k) allocations to private markets. Read more.

Markets, Policy, & News

  • LLM landscape: Menlo Ventures’ new report maps leaders, challengers, and enterprise demand. Read more.

  • Detroit vs. China: Ford will invest $5B to sharpen cost competitiveness in next-gen EVs. Read more.

  • Bold bid: Perplexity makes a $34.5B unsolicited offer for Google Chrome—a long-shot that highlights AI/search brinkmanship. Read more.

  • Command capitalism: The White House’s tariff-centric industrial strategy signals a more interventionist era for supply chains and chipmakers. Read more.

That’s a wrap for this week’s Industrial Vanguard. If this was useful, please forward it to a friend or colleague who’s in the industrial trenches.