US-based mineral detection technology developer KoBold Metals has secured almost $193m in a series B round featuring corporates BHP, Equinor and Mitsubishi, two sources privy to the matter told the Wall Street Journal yesterday.
Investment manager T Rowe Price led the round, which included Andreessen Horowitz, Apollo Projects, Bond Cap, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Cleo Capital, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and private investors Scott Belsky and John Zimmer.
Diversified conglomerate Mitsubishi invested directly while mining group BHP and oil producer Equinor took part in the round through their BHP Ventures and Equinor Ventures units respectively.
Founded in 2018, KoBold is working on artificial intelligence, big data and statistical modelling-driven digital exploration technology that enables miners to locate the metals used for electric vehicle (EV) batteries: nickel, copper, cobalt and lithium.
The company’s software gathers publicly available data sourced from business and government disclosures, in addition to past information from its partners. Its algorithms analyse the datasets in a bid to identify patterns that help eventually discern possible drilling locations.
KoBold co-founder and CEO Kurt House was quoted by Bay Area Inno as saying: “Fully electrifying the global economy is our generation’s greatest challenge; partnering this broad set of world-class investors will accelerate our efforts to find the key materials for the EV revolution.”
One source told the WSJ the cash will allow KoBold to improve its technology and operations to find more raw battery materials. It already has exploration schemes in place across Australia, Canada, Greenland, Zambia and its home country.
Key metals used for EV batteries are increasingly difficult to find as global demand soars, with the automotive industry moving away from traditional fossil fuels in a bid to achieve the United Nations’ Global Roadmap goals, which involve the decarbonisation of global energy systems by 2025.
The growth of the EV industry could boost the need for lithium by more than 40 times by 2030, according to International Energy Agency estimates cited by the International Lithium Association. Reuters reported about 320,000 tonnes of lithium was required in 2020 and the figure may reach 1 million by 2025 and 3 million five years later.
Kurt House told the Financial Times the company aims to be the ‘Google Maps’ of the Earth’s crust, as mining discoveries have gradually become a lengthier and costlier process.
“In the last 30 years, the number of discoveries per dollar of exploration capital has declined by six times,” he added. “So, if you increased your budgets by six times, you are going to find things at the same rate you found them in 1990.”
In September 2021, KoBold formed a strategic exploration partnership with BHP, whose head of metals exploration Keenan Jennings said at the time: “Globally, shallow ore deposits have largely been discovered, and remaining resources are likely deeper underground and harder to see from the surface.
“We need new approaches to find the next generation of essential minerals, and this alliance will combine historical data, artificial intelligence, and geoscience expertise to uncover what has previously been hidden.”
Details of KoBold’s valuation or its earlier rounds remain undisclosed, but the WSJ named Equinor Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and Breakthrough Energy Ventures as returning investors.
Photo courtesy of Mika Baumeister via Unsplash.
