A Silicon Valley software company that claims to be building mining’s first AI-native subsurface modelling platform has raised US$20 million of series A equity funding from Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures and other groups, including BHP.
Terra AI CEO and co-founder John Mern said the funding would help the Palo Alto firm scale its generative modelling engine, increase commercial deployments and advancing software R&D.
“Subsurface resources will shape the next decade of global development,” Mern said.
“Understanding them rigorously is critical to enabling us to build faster, waste less and develop responsibly.”
Terra AI, formed in 2023, raised $3.4 million of seeding finance that year with backing from Khosla, Rio Tinto, Founders Factory, Storyhouse Ventures, Plug and Play, The TomKat Center for Sustainability and Climate Capital.
Mern says the company has been working closely over the past two years with the “subsurface industry” to develop and test new technology and new ways of exploring. It was now supporting resource projects with some of the world’s largest mining and energy companies.
“We’ve shown how AI can help mature projects faster and with greater confidence,” he said.
Terra AI says its platform is built around “quantifying uncertainty to accelerate exploration”.
“From that foundation our models produce continuous 3D mapping of subsurface resources alongside a map of uncertainty in every estimate, so teams can be confident about resource models to enable data-optimized development across mining, geothermal and carbon storage,” the company says.
“Our patented technology fuses nearly every type of data explorers collect, from drill core data to conventional geophysics to emerging methods like muon tomography and generates geological models with quantified uncertainty.
“This allows teams to evaluate the full range of subsurface scenarios to identify where target resources are located, what they could be and critically, where the uncertainty remains
“From there, uncertainty becomes the map: teams can pinpoint precise exploration targets, reduce risk and progressively sharpen the subsurface picture, maximising value from every exploration dollar spent.
“The analogy to draw for our technology is not to chatbots or agentic wrappers. It is to AlphaFold.
“Where DeepMind compressed a 15-year drug discovery process into 12 months by applying artificial intelligence at the scientific frontier, Terra AI is pursuing the same kind of step-change for subsurface modelling and prediction.”
Mern said Terra AI’s customer base included BHP, Rio Tinto and mid-cap miners. The company planned to expand into the junior mining market over the next 12 months. It was hiring geoscientists, AI researchers, engineers and “other mission-driven problem solvers” who could collaborate effectively across disciplines.
“Over the next year, we’re growing quickly across geoscience, AI/ML, engineering and more as we work to redefine how the subsurface is explored and developed,” he said.
