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Goleta, Calif. – December 15, 2025 — Leeta Materials, a pioneer in next-generation ceramic materials, hosted its inaugural open house on December 3 to celebrate the opening of its new laboratory in Goleta, California. The facility significantly expands the company’s ability to produce advanced ceramic powders and high-performance industrial material technologies that serve as the backbone of applications across mining, energy, aerospace, automotive, and construction.
Founded in 2023 by UC Santa Barbara PhDs Kira Wyckoff (CEO) and Linus Kautzsch (CTO), Leeta develops next-generation ceramics and material solutions using advanced manufacturing technology to dramatically improve manufacturing efficiency and material quality compared to traditional methods.
Elevating Proven Material Systems Through Breakthrough Processing
Tungsten carbide (WC) has been the industry standard wear material for decades and has capped the performance and efficiency of a large number of global industries, such as mining and machining. With its proprietary U.S.-based process, Leeta can manufacture WC and other critical ceramics such as TiB₂, B₄C, SiC more efficiently, but has also unlocked the commercial production of higher-performance boride materials that finally enable products with higher oxidation resistance, superior corrosion resistance, and improved toughness. Products only perform as well as the materials they are comprised of and these performance gains on the material side directly lead to more efficient industrial products.
“This facility marks a major step forward as we scale our technology and operations,” said Kira Wyckoff, CEO of Leeta Materials. “At Leeta, we blend scientific rigor, market insight, and commercialization experience to innovate alongside our customers. We are proud to build our material manufacturing facilities in a region strengthened from the impressive materials research community stemming from UC Santa Barbara.”
“We are beginning the path toward scaled production, guided by engineers like Hamza Fakhruddin, who contributes to the design and development of our high-temperature processing and materials-manufacturing systems, and our growing technical team,” added Linus Kautzsch, co-founder and CTO.
Leeta’s rapid trajectory accelerated after Wyckoff and Kautzsch won the grand prize at UC Santa Barbara’s 24th Annual New Venture Competition. With the new Goleta lab now operational, the company is poised to expand production capacity, accelerate customer development, and deepen partnerships across industrial, aerospace, and clean-energy markets.
For more information, visit leeta.co
About Leeta Materials
Leeta Materials develops and produces advanced ceramics and industrial materials using proprietary manufacturing technology that dramatically reduces energy use and improves material quality. Founded in 2023 by UC Santa Barbara PhDs Kira Wyckoff and Linus Kautzsch, Leeta is proudly based in Goleta, California, and is committed to manufacturing the highest-performance solutions for the world’s toughest material challenges.
