Australia’s Plotlogic has tapped growing investor appetite for technology that can help green-metal miners improve efficiency with its second big private equity raise in two years, bucking a broader tech-market slowdown in the process.
North American investors were again at the fore as Plotlogic secured US$28 million of series B funding – three times what founder and CEO Andrew Job expected to raise when the company set the ball rolling on financing talks earlier this year.
Five-year-old Plotlogic has now raised more than US$50 million of seed and growth funding, setting it up to expand its geographical footprint and product range.
Its proprietary OreSense automated material characterisation product has already been picked up by mining heavyweights such as BHP, Vale, South32 and Pilbara Minerals. It combines a sensor stack and artificial intelligence to rapidly scan core samples, chips and terrain – said to include mine faces, stockpiles, heavy vehicle loads and plant feed – generating accurate ore and waste characterisation predictions that can help miners improve material extraction productivity and efficiency.
“By enhancing grade control methods and identifying problematic ore and deleterious materials as well as optimising plant uptime, Plotlogic’s technology effectively reduces costs and energy usage for every tonne mined and processed,” the company says.
Job said Plotlogic had an ambitious growth agenda and was planning to use its balance sheet to lift its commercialisation and R&D momentum. The company has become one of Brisbane’s largest small tech firms with about 100 employees.
New names on Plotlogic’s capital table include Galvanize Climate Solutions, founded by high-profile US clean-tech investors Tom Steyer and Katie Hall in 2021. They’ve said the world needs to invest circa-US$4 trillion a year in “energy transition technologies” versus the current $800 billion a year.
Schneider Electric-backed SE Ventures co-led the Plotlogic round with Galvanize.
Plotlogic said Innovation Endeavors, DCVC, Bentley iTwin Ventures and GRIDS Capital had doubled down on their series A investments.
Australia’s Main Sequence, which recently raised US$300 million in its third fund, also invested.
“The mining industry will play an essential role in decarbonising our planet, both in terms of the critical minerals and metals that are required for the electrification of industry, as well as the opportunity to move the needle on energy consumed per unit of production through the use of innovative science and technology,” Main Sequence partner Mike Zimmerman said.
“Plotlogic, our first investment at the intersection of our decarbonisation and industrial productivity challenges, offers a compelling solution that will help move the industry forward on both fronts.”
Job said users of Plotlogic’s technology were calling it a game changer – “like swapping a hacksaw for a scalpel”.
