American Advanced Materials (AAM), a developer of AI-powered advanced materials manufacturing, has raised $12.5 million in seed funding led by Amity Ventures, with participation from Human Capital, Anti Fund, and Powerset.
Founded in 2025, California-based AAM is building an AI-native manufacturing platform to produce critical materials used in artificial intelligence (AI), energy and defense. Its first project focuses on titanium sponge, a key raw material for aerospace and defense applications.
AAM will use the funding to expand its team and advance the front-end engineering and design of its manufacturing projects. The company plans to secure separate project financing to build and operate its commercial manufacturing facility.
Addressing America’s Critical Materials Supply Gap
Titanium sponge is an essential intermediate material used by metal melters and alloy manufacturers to produce titanium for aerospace, defense, and other industrial applications. Despite having major titanium melting operations, the United States has not produced titanium sponge since 2020.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. titanium sponge imports reached a record 44,000 metric tons in 2025. Meanwhile, industry experts expect domestic demand to reach 60,000 metric tons over the following 18 months, highlighting the country’s reliance on foreign suppliers.
AAM aims to address this supply gap by rebuilding domestic manufacturing capacity for critical materials. Its first facility will use the commercially established Kroll process and a vertically integrated manufacturing approach to produce titanium sponge at commercial scale.
The company plans to expand its platform to additional titanium-group materials by leveraging shared feedstock, infrastructure, and manufacturing expertise.
“America has the feedstock, energy, and expertise to lead in manufacturing these materials again,” said Alex Liegl, co-founder and CEO of AAM. “We aspire to build a next-generation DuPont, with globally competitive quality and cost as the starting point. Our goal is to make advanced materials abundant again so that their supply no longer limits what we can build.”
Expanding Into Nuclear and Advanced Technology Materials
Beyond titanium sponge, AAM is developing zirconium oxychloride (ZOC), a precursor used to produce zirconium and hafnium materials. These materials are important for nuclear fuel, gas turbines, rockets, and AI chips.
The company aims to reduce U.S. dependence on Chinese imports of ZOC and establish a domestic supply chain for these strategically important materials.
AAM has also signed letters of intent for future purchases of its titanium sponge and zirconium oxychloride production, representing more than $1 billion in potential offtake commitments. Prospective customers include domestic melters and alloy manufacturers serving the aerospace, AI infrastructure, defense, and energy industries.
Experienced Founders and Industrial Team
AAM was founded by Liegl and Represas, who launched the company in 2025 to address growing demand for advanced materials amid limited domestic manufacturing capacity.
The founding team has experience designing, building, and operating large titanium sponge and zirconium plants in the United States and internationally. The broader team includes professionals with experience at Tesla, ATI, TIMET, and Westinghouse.
Liegl previously founded Tenet Energy, an electric vehicle and home electrification fintech platform backed by Human Capital, and Layer1, a renewable-energy Bitcoin mining company backed by Peter Thiel.
Represas, an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, previously founded Able AI, an AI data platform backed by Human Capital and Canapi Ventures that was acquired by Moody’s Corporation.
“We’re combining decades of process knowledge with modern engineering, AI, and robotics automation,” said Diego Represas, co-founder, President, and Chief Technology Officer of AAM. “America doesn’t need to wait for new technologies to lead the world in production cost, quality, and volume. What it needs is to build quickly. For AAM, the factory is the product. We design the plant, its software, and its operations as one system to carry what we learn into every future facility we build.”
With its new funding, AAM aims to establish a competitive U.S. manufacturing platform for critical materials, strengthen domestic supply chains, and support growing demand from AI infrastructure, energy, aerospace, and defense.
