IMARC mining-tech funding spotlight: A lot to digest

The major 2025 IMARC event in Sydney, Australia, highlighted mining’s growing appetite for technology and laid out a wondrous buffet of new and emerging tech. But it also heard the industry’s “metabolism”, particularly in the West, was a persistent brake on both better mining business outcomes and faster development of next-gen mining tech firms.

In a rapidly evolving global mining and metals landscape, this could be a decisive factor in the next tectonic shift in the world’s 21st century mineral-based material supply chains.

China having already reset the board – outside of ferrous raw material supply – over the past 25 years.

“We can out-innovate” China, is the mantra from some Western mining investors who see technology as a crucial lever if the West is going to close considerable cost gaps China has opened up in material supply chains. But in nickel, rare earths and other areas the gaps have only been getting wider and recent evidence suggests China’s mining “innovation ecosystem” is maturing faster.

“After a week taking a closer look at Chinese mining technology I come away very impressed,” said a senior Australian mining executive after recently returning from a China visit. “I’ve been saying for a while that we’re going to need to take Chinese mining technology a lot more seriously because it is clearly moving a lot quicker than some of the established Western brands.”

IMARC took a deep dive into the mining and metals tech funding landscape, which has seen more than US$13.8 billion of financing and M&A over the past five years – representing an unprecedented level of interest in new and also more orthodox technology.

Western activity has mainly been driven by mining original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and diverse software companies (such as Constellation, Hexagon and Bentley Systems). Groups such as Australian Securities Exchange-listed IMDEX and Orica have also been busy – both as investors in start-ups and acquirers – while OEM and mining company corporate venture capital (CVC) vehicles have become increasingly active.

On the venture funding front, general and specialist VCs have got busier in mining and metals tech. Ditto for private equity leaders such as US-based KKR. Family offices from Goa to Austin to Perth, and even metal trading groups, are backing tech companies.

Now more government funding is trickling into the space.

In the beginning ...

“I think we’re just beginning the broader critical minerals super cycle,” Orion Industrial Ventures managing partner Mark Frayman said at IMARC. Orion this month announced a $1.8 billion minerals funding consortium with the US International Development Finance Corp and Abu Dhabi’s ADQ.

“It’s at the forefront of all geopolitical discussions globally. We'll see technology and technology access, much like it is in semiconductors, become really strategic and the leading start-ups will get government funding.

“We’ll start to see really large influxes of capital come into the sector.

“There is [already] more capital at the early stage. It’s coming from generalist investors. I heard the other day that in [Bill Gates’] Breakthrough Energy's latest fund three of their first seven investments were in critical minerals which is quite incredible given the breadth of their mandate.

“I think it's a great time to be a start-up founder [and] an early-stage venture investor.

“Just look at IMARC: it’s huge this year and it’s grown every year. And I think it's just the beginning.”

The event presented panel discussions on funding and other support for mining-tech firms coming from VCs, CVCs, miners, innovation studios and government-backed agents.

Failing faster

Michelle Carey joined IMDEX via one of the company’s many acquisitions in the past 15 years. The company, which now derives most of its revenue from mining sensors and software, is closing on a A$2 billion market valuation and has its sights set much higher. It has targeted a long-term gap in mining-tech funding by investing in start-ups and accelerating their progress.

“There is a reality here,” said Carey, IMDEX’s chief digital and orebody knowledge officer.

“I think it’s amazing that there’s so much early-stage VC money coming in. It only matures and strengthens all of us to have that money.

“But I think [the] conversation about the metabolism of the mining industry echoes across all the panels. There is the technology to develop and then there’s the effort and the money to actually get technology adopted. That takes time, that takes money and that takes commitment.

“And if we're not finding ways to fund that as well as funding the start then it's not going to be enough.

“Obviously, this is the space that we play in. But it needs a lot of people like us.”

IMARC heard from groups such as BHP, Rio Tinto, Eramet Ideas, Founders Factory and Unearthed on strategies and steps taken to bring the best new ideas and technologies to the attention of boards and operators, measure their potential in real production environments where possible, and try to accelerate deployment at scale where significant value is demonstrated.

This continues to deliver mainly incremental cost improvements and gains in efficiency, safety and environmental outcomes to frontrunning technology adopters at brownfield sites.

Genuine technology-led operational step changes have been seen with the introduction of autonomous vehicle fleets at greenfield mines, where various energy-efficient ore grinding, pre-concentration and other breakthrough technologies have also had the biggest impact.

But traditional capital investment cycles, the education and real-world experiences of most operators and the general impatience of available capital have all conspired to make mining an inimical environment for Silicon Valley-type tech start-ups.

“Time is a start-up’s most precious resource. They just burn through cash really quickly,” Frayman said.

“We often get asked which model to pursue and the answer is there are very few models that really work. Do we bypass large miners and just go to juniors? Yes, but they've got no capacity to pay. Do we want to joint venture-in those [technology] assets? Maybe, but then how do you monetise that? Okay, so maybe, we want to go and acquire our own assets and get a disproportionate share of the rent? Perhaps, but that’s a really capital destructive model and really hard to earn venture-style returns.

“[We see] examples like Australian company Fleet [Space Technologies] which is a unicorn company selling directly to miners on a contract basis with annual revenue ... and KoBold Metals, which has gone on to be a multi-billion-dollar company by owning [resource] assets. They’re the exceptions, not the rule.

“I think programs like the Founders Factory or BHP Ventures’ portfolio [investment and accelerator] strategies are great but still, how do you set up to get into corporates and get a share of the rent and do so relatively quickly?

“It is really hard.”

Tamryn Barker, Australian-based mining and nature tech sector director for London-based Founders Factory, said the firm’s new venture with Rio Tinto aimed at finding and supporting “the development and commercialisation of breakthrough technologies in the mining industry” was illustrative of the industry’s drive to speed adoption of impactful technologies.

The joint venture was anchored in Western Australia, she said, to provide ready access to Rio Tinto’s vast Pilbara iron ore value chain and open doors to other Rio sites around the world.

“The founders that we source through the program [are] sourced globally. We looked at over 1500 companies for the 18 investments we’ve made just in the mining tech space. So it’s extremely competitive,” Barker said.

She thinks the CVC model is powerful and is evolving in mining. “It’s great having Rio on the cap table but it’s not about the funding. It’s actually about all the technical support and leadership buy-in to translate it into something we can accelerate,” she said.

“All big corporates have challenges [imbibing new innovations].

“Even though we can work out the mechanics of a partnership, a joint venture model, so there's shared skin in the game and there’s funding allocated, there are still issues around the right sort of pilot-phase contract [for example]. I think there’s opportunity to have fit for purpose contracts that support the next stage to scale up, making sure that there’s a lot of openness between sites.

“There could be project funds set aside for that so that it’s quicker to access within a corporate that already has strong buy-in.

“So there are still things that can be done better and [be made] fit for purpose ... Things that can make it go more quickly and smoother to scale up.”

While voices in mining can be heard referring to the industry’s need for radical shifts in operating methodology – I-Pulse’s Robert Friedland may be the most prominent – most of the money that has poured into the tech space in the past five years has come from incumbent OEMs and miners.

OEMs are targeting technologies that are adjunctive and accretive to current core product lines and, in particular, aftermarket revenues.

Tech funding is also starting to flow more freely into metal recycling and mine-waste retreatment, two areas that could be more disruptive to the traditional $2 trillion primary mineral and metal supply sector and its connected supply ecosystem.

“Often a range of people [ask], are you a financial CVC or are you a strategic or hybrid,” BHP Ventures head of portfolio strategy Melissa Bergin said at IMARC.

“And I think what they're effectively trying to say is, how connected do you need to be to the core of the business in order to get money?

“We’re [BHP] very much on the strategic side. What that means is any investment that we make has to tie back to the strategic priorities of BHP. It can be the most incredible opportunity that we think will probably deliver good returns but if it's not related back to our core business, if it's not within our thesis, we wouldn't make the investment.”