Texas hedge fund Condire Investors has backed an oversubscribed US$12.5 million equity raise by US mining technology firm, Mine Vision Systems, which has been building global distribution channels for its underground FaceCapture surveying platform with the likes of Datamine.
“For us, this is an exciting step,” said Condire co-founder Ryan Schedler.
“We performed extensive diligence, speaking with our mining portfolio companies and other industry leaders. The feedback on [Mine Vision Systems] and FaceCapture was consistently strong.
“We believe MVS provides essential technology for the underground mining value chain.”
Schedler started Dallas-based Condire in 2012 with Bradley Shisler, also a director of Canadian gold explorers Rockhaven Resources and Trifecta Gold. They say Condire’s primary focus is publicly-traded natural resource companies so a private mining tech start-up is an interesting addition to their portfolio.
Cornerstone investor in Pittsburgh-headquartered Mine Vision Systems, Rockwell Venture Capital, led the series A financing and CEO Kent Rockwell said the firm’s “front-row seat to the company’s progress” encouraged it to back the new funding round.
“The team’s execution over the past three years has translated into real operational impact for customers,” Rockwell said.
Mine Vision Systems (MVS) CEO in that period, Michael Smocer, said the new investment “exceeded our initial target of $10 million and will enable us to accelerate our product roadmap and deliver the decision platform underground mining has been waiting for”.
“2025 has been a breakout year,” he said.
“We are proud of the partnerships we have built with many of the world’s largest and most innovative mining companies and we are beginning to scale what’s working.”
Carnegie Mellon spin-out MVS was formed in 2015, describing itself as a “pioneer in the underground 3D mapping space”.
“We work worldwide to improve efficiency, safety, production and automation in mining through unmatched data collection, insights and workflow,” the company says.
In February this year MVS announced a “strategic partnership” with mine software leader Datamine, part of Canadian-listed Constellation Software, to integrate Datamine’s mapping and sampling software with MVS’ platform.
“The partnership enables Datamine to market the combined solution and deliver a complete solution to its customer base,” they said.
