Sourcing Verified Critical Materials: A Buyer's Guide
Buyers — procurement directors, sourcing managers and brokers acquiring material
By the StrategicRawMaterial team · · 8 min read
Buying critical materials has always carried two risks that have nothing to do with price. The first is whether the material is what the seller says it is: its grade, its origin, its chain of custody. The second is what you give away by asking. Disclose your demand to the wrong counterparty, and you may find the price has moved before you have placed an order.
StrategicRawMaterial was built to remove both risks. Every unit of material offered on the platform is independently verified before you can bid on it, and every participant trades anonymously until a match is made. You compete on terms, not on who you are, and you know what you are buying before you commit.
This guide walks you through everything a new buyer needs: how to join, how to verify your company, how to find and bid on material, and what happens once you win.
In short: Joining is free. Buying is free: there are no buyer fees and no commission. Every Offer you see has passed independent material verification, and your identity stays private until you are matched.
What you can buy
StrategicRawMaterial focuses on the materials that modern magnet, battery and electronics supply chains depend on:
- Rare earth oxides: neodymium (Nd), neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), praseodymium (Pr), dysprosium (Dy), terbium (Tb), samarium (Sm), gadolinium (Gd) and holmium (Ho)
- Rare earth metals and alloys: Nd, NdPr, Dy, Tb and Sm metal, and dysprosium-iron (DyFe)
- Magnets: samarium-cobalt (SmCo)
- Other critical materials: ferro-silicon, lithium carbonate, cobalt metal and gallium metal
Every listing states the material, the grade (purity), the volume in kilograms, the lead time and the price, so you can compare like with like.
Step 1: Join the marketplace
StrategicRawMaterial is a closed, verified marketplace. There is no anonymous self-signup: every company is reviewed before it joins. This is what makes the market trustworthy for everyone in it, including you.
1. Request access. Select Request access on our homepage and tell us about your company:
- Company legal name, country of incorporation and registration number
- Your name, role and business email
- The materials you are interested in
- Optionally, anything else you would like us to know about your needs
You will receive a confirmation email straight away. Submitting a request does not create an account yet. It starts our review.
2. Application review. Our team reviews each application to confirm that the company is real and the request is legitimate.
3. Activate your account. Once approved, you receive an invitation email. Follow the link, set your password and sign in. From this moment you can explore the marketplace: browse live Offers and Requests and get familiar with the market.
Step 2: Verify your identity
Before you can bid or post, we complete a KYC/KYB check on you and your company through our identity partner, Entrust. The check covers your personal identity, your company's registration documents, sanctions lists and politically exposed persons (PEP) screening.
Starting it takes one click: open Verify identity in the header (or go to Profile) and select Request verification. Until the check is complete, bidding and posting controls are shown but disabled, with a short note explaining why.
When the check clears, your account receives the Verified Identity badge and every trading control unlocks. You start on the Starter buyer pathway, described below.
Why this matters to you as a buyer: every seller you trade with has passed the same check. There are no unverified counterparties on StrategicRawMaterial.
Step 3: Understand your buyer pathway
StrategicRawMaterial never limits whether you can participate. It scales how much you can do as you build a track record. That track record is your pathway.
| Buyer pathway | How you reach it | Active bids and Requests | Volume per posting | Shortest lead time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | Identity verified | 1 | up to 1,000 kg | 60 days |
| Verified Partner | 1 settled purchase | 2 | up to 10,000 kg | 30 days |
| Premier Partner | 5 settled purchases | 5 | up to 50,000 kg | 14 days |
A few things are worth knowing from day one:
- Promotion is automatic. Each time a purchase settles, your progress updates. When you reach the next level, you are notified by email and in the app. There are no forms to fill in.
- Your Profile shows your progress, including exactly how many settled deals you need for the next level.
- The marketplace is tailored to your level. You see the Offers that fit your current pathway, so everything in front of you is something you can act on.
- Buying and selling progress separately. If your company also sells, that activity builds a separate seller pathway. See our guide to trading on both sides of the market.
Step 4: Find material, two ways
Option A: Bid on a verified Offer
Open Marketplace and select the Offers tab to browse material that sellers have listed. Every Offer on this tab has already completed independent material verification by TracePass. An Offer only goes live once its verification is complete.
When you find a fit, open the Offer and place a bid with:
- Price you are willing to pay, at or above the seller's asking price
- Volume you want
- Lead time you commit to
- Your delivery location
Bids are sealed. While the auction is open, you and every other participant see only how many bids have been placed, never anyone else's price, volume or identity. The seller sees the same count and nothing more, so there is no opportunity to play bids against each other. You can withdraw your bid at any time while the auction is still open.
Option B: Post a Request and let sellers come to you
If you cannot find what you need, or prefer the market to compete for your order, open Post Offer / Request, choose Request and describe what you need: material, grade, volume, lead time, delivery location and the maximum price you are prepared to pay. Quotes above your maximum are not accepted.
Verified sellers then submit quotes against your Request. Posting a Request is free. Each seller pays for the material verification of what they quote, so every quote you receive is backed by verified material.
Step 5: Evaluation and match
When the auction closes, every submission is evaluated by the same transparent, rules-based scoring. It weighs price most heavily, alongside volume, lead time and location. The highest-scoring submission wins. No one hand-picks a winner, and the outcome is recorded on a tamper-evident auction ledger.
If you win, you receive an email and an in-app notification with a link to your new deal workspace, and your entry in Activity changes to Accepted.
If you do not win, you are notified and can see how your submission ranked (for example, "2nd of 4"). You never see the winner's terms or identity, just as no one ever sees yours. If you believe something went wrong, you can open a dispute within 48 hours of the result.
Step 6: Your deal workspace
The moment you are matched, the deal opens as Matched & Contracted:
- Both parties are revealed to each other, and only to each other: company name, contact email, contact phone and a profile summary (headquarters country, verified-since date and number of settled deals).
- The contract is generated automatically from the terms both sides agreed to when they posted and bid, naming the buyer and the seller.
- The material has already been verified, so there is no verification step inside the deal to wait for.
Delivery and payment are arranged directly between you and the seller, under the contract. StrategicRawMaterial does not hold your funds and does not charge you on the deal. Once delivery and payment are confirmed, our team marks the deal Settled, and it counts toward your buyer pathway.
What it costs
| Buyer | |
|---|---|
| Joining and identity verification | Free |
| Browsing, bidding and posting Requests | Free |
| Commission on deals | None |
The only fee on StrategicRawMaterial is the material verification fee, and it is paid by the seller before their material goes live. It is the reason every Offer you see is verified.
Frequently asked questions
- Can a seller see who I am when I bid?
- No. Before a match, sellers see the number of bids on their Offer and nothing else. Your identity is revealed only to the one counterparty you are matched with.
- Can I change my mind after bidding?
- Yes. You can withdraw a bid at any time while the auction is still open.
- What does "verified material" actually mean?
- Before an Offer goes live, TracePass independently audits the material. The audit can include facility documentation, video inspection, laboratory assay, certificate of origin, chain of custody and regulatory compliance checks.
- How do I move beyond 1,000 kg?
- Settle your first purchase. Your buyer pathway moves to Verified Partner automatically, raising your limit to 10,000 kg per posting.
- Where do I track everything?
- Activity lists every bid and Request with its current status, and the notification bell keeps you updated in real time. If anything looks wrong, use the report icon available on every screen.
Ready to source with confidence?
Request access from our homepage. It takes a few minutes and costs nothing. Once your company is verified, the full market of independently verified critical materials is open to you.