Canadian mining machine intelligence technology start-up LoopX has raised C$4.05 million (US$2.9 million) of seed funding to advance commercialisation of its underground vehicle safety and productivity systems.
The Sudbury company secured backing from the Canadian government-owned Business Development Bank of Canada’s BDC Seed Venture Fund, US-based Orion Resource Partners’ venture capital arm, Orion Industrial Ventures, and engineering major Hatch.
LoopX says it has its “physical AI platform” and sensors deployed at eight active mines with operators and contractors that include Vale Base Metals and Cementation Americas. It says the working collision avoidance, payload measurement and tracking, and drill-boom hazard detection systems are producing “real-world data that strengthens our AI models, improves system reliability and accelerates our ability to deliver safer, smarter and more productive mining operations”.
BDC fund partner Mark Smith said LoopX was demonstrating scalable mine safety and productivity results. Orion Industrial managing partner Mark Frayman agreed LoopX’s “early traction with flagship customers” was important. And Hatch global mining director Mark Deziel liked LoopX’s “incredible team” which was “developing AI technology with unlimited potential to make mining safer and more productive”.
Smith, Frayman and Deziel are on LoopX’s board of directors with company co-founders Chao Yu and Lucas Cui.
CEO Yu said the 2022 start-up said underground mines were demanding and complex. The company’s platform combined thermal vision AI, edge computing and proprietary AI models trained on real-world mining data to “give mining equipment the ability to see, understand and make decisions across the full range of underground conditions”.
“We believe high-risk environments deserve the most intelligence,” Yu said.
“Mining is where our physical AI is tested under the toughest real-world conditions. Every deployment expands our proprietary mining dataset and strengthens our AI models, creating a continuous learning cycle that brings us closer to the next generation of intelligent industrial machines.”
Yu said LoopX wanted to grow its applied AI, finance, operations and sales teams and build a global deployment footprint.
