Maglut Heavy Industries Emerges from Stealth in Long Beach
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Maglut Heavy Industries, a business focused on processing and refining rare earth metals using a chromatography-based platform, was an opportunity born from the vision of founders Curtis Wu and Azhar Yerzhanova, who come from vastly different backgrounds but shared a vision from their first meeting – through a dating site.
“We needed to show that the technology works. We hit that milestone a few months ago,” said Wu.
The pair combined Wu’s scientific background, which included years of working at biotech giant Amgen in Thousand Oaks, with Yerzhanova’s background in venture capital and technology. The company emerged from stealth at its Long Beach headquarters, where it plans to use chromatography to develop a U.S.-based source for materials that are critical to semiconductors, energy infrastructure, defense systems and most modern technology.
Maglut is a vertically integrated chromatography company, designing and manufacturing its own resin technology. The company has validated its ARC-1 process at pilot scale, separating real-world feedstock into individual rare earth oxides at 99.9% purity and higher.
The launch comes as rare earth supply chains face renewed scrutiny. Beginning in January 2027, new Department of War rules require defense contractors to remove China from their rare earth magnet supply chains, creating clear long-term demand for domestic alternatives.
The company was founded in San Francisco in July 2025 but moved to Southern California to be closer to the epicenter of the hard tech industry. It currently has six full-time employees and several part-time advisors.
“There’s a renaissance for hardware technology. We moved here because there is a solid foundation for what the American reindustrialization movement looks like,” said Yerzhanova.
Information for this story was provided by Maglut.
