The iron oxide embedded reduced graphene oxide (rGO) composites were synthesized by a facile and cost-effective graphenothermal synthesis route. Initially, Fe2O3 was synthesized by thermal heating and used as a Fe source (in addition to GO) to prepare the Fe3O4/rGO composite. During reduction process, GO was reduced to rGO with three dimensional architecture and the micron/sub-micron Fe2O3 particles to nano-sized Fe3O4 particles. As a LIB anode, the Fe3O4/rGO composites displayed an initial discharge capacity of 1405mAhg−1 at 0.1Ag−1 and maintained a capacity of 812mAhg−1 at 0.5Ag−1 for 250 consecutive cycles. Furthermore, FeO/rGO electrodes exhibited better cycling stability for several cycles even at 0.5Ag−1. So the composite materials developed here hold high potential for energy storage applications.