CorePower Magnetics Raises $10.6M for U.S. Manufacturing

Every new megawatt of compute has to pass through physical components that cannot be scaled with a software update. CorePower Magnetics has raised a $10.6M oversubscribed equity financing to expand U.S. manufacturing for the inductors, transformers, and advanced magnetic materials that help electricity move efficiently through data centers, grids, and industrial systems.

Engine Ventures and Material Impact co-led the September 17, 2026 round. Evergreen Climate Innovations, the Carnegie Mellon Catalyst Fund, and Baruch Future Ventures also participated. CorePower reports $13.6M in total equity funding and an additional $27M in non-dilutive support from ARPA-E, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense.

The financing moves CorePower deeper into the difficult part of advanced materials: turning a laboratory advantage into repeatable factory output. The company plans to add production capacity and equipment in the Pittsburgh region, hire across engineering, operations, and manufacturing, and move multiple product lines toward volume production.

What CorePower Magnetics Raised

CorePower describes the new financing as an equity round, without assigning it a Series A label. The company says it was oversubscribed and will support manufacturing expansion, hiring, and commercialization as customer programs move from development toward production.

The announcement also changes the board. Reed Sturtevant, a general partner at Engine Ventures, and Carmichael Roberts, co-founder and managing partner of Material Impact, have joined as directors. Their firms are backing a model that combines materials science, component engineering, and manufacturing inside one company rather than treating those steps as separate handoffs.

The public capital record requires careful accounting. CorePower's announcement says the $10.6M round brings total equity funding to $13.6M, while a September 8 SEC Form D reports $14.36M sold in a $14.58M equity offering to 7 investors. The available sources do not explain that difference, so the filing amount should not be treated as a revised round total.

The Power Stack Has a Materials Problem

Power electronics control how electricity changes voltage, frequency, and form before it reaches a server rack, motor, battery, charging system, or grid asset. Semiconductors have advanced quickly, but the magnetic components beside them still carry limits around heat, efficiency, operating frequency, physical size, and manufacturability.

Those constraints matter more as electrical systems become denser. The International Energy Agency's updated outlook projects global data-center electricity consumption rising from roughly 485 TWh in 2025 to 950 TWh in 2030. In the United States, the IEA expects data centers to account for around half of electricity-demand growth through the end of the decade.

The grid is already carrying a separate equipment problem. National Renewable Energy Laboratory research describes high prices and long wait times for distribution transformers and estimates that installed transformer-capacity requirements could increase by up to 260% by 2050. Data centers, transport electrification, aging equipment, and new generation all increase the need for components that can be manufactured and delivered at scale.

From Alloy Science to Commercial Components

CorePower's foundational work grew from nanocrystalline-alloy and strain-annealing research at Carnegie Mellon University and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory. CEO Sam Kernion and co-founder and CTO Paul Ohodnicki helped advance the underlying technology before the company was founded in Pittsburgh in 2020.

Nanocrystalline materials can deliver strong magnetic performance, but traditional formulations can be brittle and difficult to manufacture for demanding industrial conditions. CorePower says it reformulated the material for higher-temperature operation and developed processes that combine rapid solidification, casting, and continuous annealing under controlled tension.

The company now works across the value chain, from raw alloy through finished components. Its product set includes standard and custom inductors, transformers, motors, and amorphous steel for distribution transformers. That vertical integration is intended to shorten the route from design to production while giving CorePower control over the material, process, and component that a customer ultimately qualifies.

What the Financing Changes

CorePower says it has advanced alloy, annealing, and component manufacturing from laboratory and intermediate scales into commercial-scale production. It also reports paid engagements with leading companies, including multiple Fortune 500 businesses, across AI infrastructure, data centers, industrial power systems, and grid modernization. The customers are unnamed, and the traction figures remain company-reported.

The $10.6M round is meant to add the equipment, people, and production capacity needed to make that progress repeatable. Earlier public support includes an ARPA-E SCALEUP award for domestic manufacturing of high-power-density magnetic components and other DOE and DOD programs. Equity capital now sits beside those public programs as CorePower moves closer to commercial volume.

The company also sells a standardization argument. Magnetics have historically required extensive customization, and CorePower is building production-ready product families alongside engineered-to-order components. If the model works, customers gain a more direct route from system requirements to qualified hardware without separating material development, component design, and production across several suppliers.

What Still Has to Be Proven

CorePower has not disclosed valuation, financing terms, revenue, margins, backlog, production yield, exact hiring targets, or volume-production milestones. Its claims about paid Fortune 500 engagements, commercial-scale production, and improvements in component weight, volume, and thermal loss have not been independently audited in the reviewed public record.

Those gaps do not erase the manufacturing progress, but they define the next test. Advanced materials create value only when a factory can produce them consistently, customers can qualify the components, and economics survive larger orders. CorePower now has more capital, two new investor-directors, and a growing demand signal around data centers and grid equipment. The evidence that matters next will come from the line, the qualification process, and the customer programs moving into production.