​Labs4Minerals Expert Webinar

​Critical Minerals & Rare Earths — What Industry Needs and Investors Want

​June 3rd, 2026

​9:00 am IST | 4:00pm AEST | 3:00am EST

​Agenda:

• ​Opening: Jack Scher, NetZero Ventures

• ​The Critical Minerals Innovation Opportunity and What Investors Want, Mark Frayman, Managing Partner, Orion Industrial Ventures

• ​Unpacking the Extraction & Processing Challenge, Irad Rekem, Managing Director, Tenova Advanced Technologies

• ​From Tech to a Scalable Startup, Yael Weisz Zilberman, VP Business Development, NetZero Ventures

• ​Live Q&A

​The webinars are conducted in collaboration with Science Abroad, and Tel Aviv Global.

​This webinar session is conducted ahead of the launch of the Labs4Minerals Competition

​Ahead of the Labs4Minerals competition (applications open July 13th), we are hosting a series of webinars and in-person meetups with our industry experts - the individuals shaping the future of critical minerals and rare earths.

​Each session is designed to give entrepreneurs and academic researchers a clearer view of two things that rarely show up in a journal article: what industry actually needs, and how the VC community evaluates early-stage deep-tech.

​What you'll take away:

• ​Industry pain points and unmet needs across exploration, extraction & refining, recycling & recovery, and material substitutes

• ​How investors assess early-stage technologies in critical minerals — what gets funded, what doesn't, and why

• ​Practical guidance on positioning academic research for commercial translation, from competition application through to startup formation

• ​Direct Q&A with experts from Tenova Advanced Technologies, Evonik, and the wider Pax Silica investor and operator network

​Who should attend: Entrepreneurs, early0stage ventures, academic researchers — whether you're already preparing an application or still exploring whether your work is a fit.

​For more information about the Competition. The competition is launching soon! More details on July 13th.
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