Rare Terra

Delivering Low-cost American-made

Rare Earth Metals

Learn

MISSION

RareTerra’s mission is to transform rare earth production with biotechnology, delivering low-cost, American-made materials that power clean energy, advanced communications, and consumer technologies. By eliminating toxic chemicals, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and recycling critical minerals, we are building a circular and sustainable supply chain.

VISION

RareTerra harnesses the power of biology to make rare earth production clean, circular, and accessible — fueling the technologies that drive our future.

Nature solved the rare earth recovery problem. We are industrializing it.

RareTerra turns microbial rare earth biochemistry into a clean, precise alternative to hydrometallurgy. Our nature-inspired, engineered microbes selectively capture and separate lanthanides at ambient conditions, using dense arrays of chelators and transporters tuned to subtle differences in ionic radius. Rare earths are biologically separated and purified, delivering spec-grade cuts from ore, concentrates, e-waste, and swarf.

Rare earths need a new playbook. We’re building it.

Today’s rare-earth supply is monopolized, chemically intensive, and fragile—driving high costs, waste, and uncertainty for everything from data center construction to EV manufacture. RareTerra’s biology-first platform is built to flip that script.

How our technology disrupts the status quo.

Bio-selective recovery, not massive solvent plants

Our microbes and ligands target specific rare-earth ions at ambient conditions, shrinking or replacing long solvent-extraction cascades and cutting reagents, wastewater, and energy use.

Feedstock-flexible by design

We unlock value from magnets, mine tailings, process scrap, and low-grade ores that are uneconomic with conventional flowsheets—turning “waste” into reliable supply.

Distributed, modular refining

Compact, closed-loop units co-located with manufacturers or mines reduce logistics, diversify supply away from single-point bottlenecks, and build resilience into the chain.

Meet our Team

Our professional team is here to help you with any questions or concerns.

Allan LeBlanc is the CEO of RareTerra. He has more than 12 years of experience in commercializing industrial biotechnology. Prior to RareTerra, Allan worked as VP of Business Development at Calysta, where the company raised over $300M and built the world's largest gas fermentation facility. Earlier in his career, he worked in finance and venture capital. Allan has an undergraduate degree from the University of Florida and an MBA from UC Berkeley.
Nathan Good is a Co-founder and CTO of RareTerra and a leading expert in rare earth-utilizing microbes. He brings 15+ years of R&D experience spanning rare earth biochemistry and microbial metabolism. Before RareTerra, Nathan was a scientist at UC Berkeley, where his work on biological rare-earth capture helped shape the company’s platform. He is a 2022 Bakar Innovation Fellow and a 2023 Activate (Cyclotron Road LEEP) fellow—programs that accelerated RareTerra’s formation. Nathan earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Washington.
N. Cecilia Martinez-Gomez is a Co-founder of RareTerra, an endowed Chair, Bakar Faculty Fellow, and Associate Professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at UC Berkeley. She received an NSF CAREER Award for her pioneering work with rare-earth elements and microbial metabolism. Dr. Martinez-Gomez earned her bachelor’s degree from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and her Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Sidney is a Research Associate at RareTerra. She graduated from UC Berkeley in 2025 with a B.S. in Microbial Biology, for which she completed an honors thesis on microbial adaptations to metabolic stress. She has four years of experience studying bacterial rare earth metabolism and is passionate about utilizing microbes for sustainable development..