Earth AI gets a further chance to demonstrate the value of artificial intelligence (AI) in mineral resource discovery after a US$20 million equity raise backed by Tamarack Global and Cantos Ventures.
The scale-up claims an “industry-leading discovery success rate of 75%” and 80% cost reduction when combining its AI-led Mineral Targeting Platform and proprietary drilling system, versus standard industry approaches that achieve a 0.5-1% discovery rate.
Tamarack Global managing partner Jamie Lee said the firm saw Earth AI’s Mineral Targeting Platform as the “best trained model amongst any other players in the space”.
Other new investors involved in the series B funding were Overmatch, Alpaca and Sparkwave Capital, while existing backers Y Combinator and Scrum Ventures participated.
“New funding will drive AI and drilling technology development and accelerate project value discovery,” Earth AI said.
“The company plans to increase the project pipeline to over 50 sites and increase drilling capacity to 100,000m at an industry beating $100/m cost.”
Earth AI’s business model, similar to others in the field, is based on identifying mineral deposits using AI, validating them through drilling and then selling mining rights to large mining companies.
The company cited a “greenfield palladium mineral system” and new gold system, among late 2024 discoveries in Australia using its platform.
“Despite the tremendous global need for mineral resources for everything from the energy transition to day-to-day life, new mineral deposit discoveries are notorious for being expensive and time consuming,” Earth AI CEO Roman Teslyuk said.
“Earth AI is changing this paradigm using its proprietary AI and drilling technology that has already made verified discoveries in greenfield regions.
“This new round of funding will be critical to expanding our operations and establishing a pipeline of attractive new mining projects for the industry.”