KoBold Metals Raises $537 Million: AI-Driven Mining Startup Backed by Tech Titans Eyes Public Offering

Bill Gates And Jeff Bezos Backed Mining Startup Raises $537 Million, Targets Going Public In Few Years - iShares Future AI & Tech ETF (ARCA:ARTY), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

AI-driven exploration advances critical mineral discovery that is aligned with U.S. foreign interests. KoBold Metals, the AI-driven mining startup backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, has secured $537 million in its Series C funding round. The latest funding round gives the Berkeley-based company a valuation of $2.96 billion and fresh capital to pursue ambitious goals in the critical minerals sector. Durable Capital Partners LP and T. Rowe Price funds led the round, alongside contributions from existing investors such as Andreessen Horowitz Growth, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Mitsubishi Corporation, as well as new players like StepStone Group and WCM Investment Management. This latest injection brings KoBold's total fundraising to $1 billion. The funds will accelerate exploration, develop high-potential projects, and enhance its R&D capabilities. KoBold's innovative approach relies on artificial intelligence to locate deposits of vital minerals such as copper, cobalt, lithium, and nickel. The company's proprietary technology aggregates data from sources like satellite imagery and historical drilling reports to create a detailed "Google Maps" of the Earth's crust, pinpointing untapped resources that traditional methods might miss. Using this technology, KoBold discovered a substantial copper deposit in Zambia's Copperbelt. The Dumbwa target, part of the Solwezi project, exhibited promising results, including drilling highlights of 16 meters at 1.24% copper. KoBold's $2 billion Mingomba site is set to produce at least 300,000 tons annually by 2030, making it Zambia's largest copper operation. "About 40% of the new capital will go toward advancing existing projects into production, with Zambia receiving the lion's share," KoBold's CEO and co-founder Kurt House said to the Financial Times. With 60 active projects across continents, including partnerships with mining giants like BHP and Rio Tinto, the firm is ready to reshuffle the industry. House noted they plan to aggressively expand the team, particularly seeking data scientists, while expanding into new jurisdictions such as Finland and Botswana. The company also aims to go public within three to five years. Despite changes in U.S. political leadership, House expressed confidence in bipartisan support for critical mineral initiatives. "There is very broad bipartisan support for diversifying [the] supply of critical minerals because this is a national security priority," he said. U.S. foreign policy is aiding companies like KoBold. President Joe Biden's last official trip to Angola discussed revitalizing the Lobito railway line to facilitate mineral transport across Angola, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Thus, firms like KoBold would benefit from better infrastructure while bolstering Western access to strategic resources and reducing reliance on China-dominated supply chains. Read Next: Gold Prices To Climb 7% In 2025 Amid Trump's Return To White House And Geopolitical Tensions: 'Momentum Is Taking Back Over' Photo via via Shutterstock AMZNAmazon.com Inc$221.410.54%Overview Rating:Good62.5%Technicals Analysis1000100Financials Analysis400100WatchlistOverviewARTYiShares Future AI & Tech ETF$37.07-0.40%BATTAmplify Lithium & Battery Technology ETF$8.70-1.02%BOTZGlobal X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF$32.420.28%COPXGlobal X Copper Miners ETF$38.620.26%CPERUnited States Copper Index Fund ETV$25.32-%DRIVGlobal X Autonomous & Electric Vehicles ETF$23.060.04%JJCTF$45.03-%LITGlobal X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF$40.00-0.30%MSFTMicrosoft Corp$420.550.47%ROBTFirst Trust Nasdaq Artificial Intelligence and Robotics ETF$44.97-%UBOTDirexion Daily Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Automation Index Bull 2X Shares$23.27-%WTAIWisdomTree Trust WisdomTree Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Fund$22.873.39%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Mining start-up backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos valued at $2.96bn

A mining and artificial intelligence start-up backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos has raised $537mn in its latest funding round, as it seeks to become a key player in the race for the critical minerals needed for the energy transition. Berkeley-based KoBold Metals said its series C funding round valued the company at $2.96bn, and was co-led by existing investor T Rowe Price, which has been joined by Durable Capital Partners. Existing investors including Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures and US venture capital group Andreessen Horowitz also participated in the round, along with new backers including private capital group StepStone. KoBold, which has raised $1bn to date, is among the western mining companies seeking to compete with Chinese rivals to produce metals such as copper, lithium and nickel. The metals are used in everything from batteries for electric vehicles to the defence industry, and western governments have been increasingly seeking to diversify away from supply chains dominated by China. As part of these efforts, the US is helping finance the revival of the Lobito railway line that will transport critical minerals across swaths of Africa and connect the Democratic Republic of Congo with Zambia and Angola. KoBold, which uses AI to comb through historical and scientific data to identify untapped mineral deposits, said in February that it had discovered a huge deposit of copper in Zambia. The $2bn Mingomba site would produce at least 300,000 tonnes per year from the 2030s, KoBold said. KoBold's co-founder and chief executive Kurt House said about 40 per cent of the new capital would be spent on developing existing projects into mines, with the Zambian copper project taking "the lion's share of that". The company -- which uses OpenAI's generative AI technology as well as more traditional AI -- planned to "add at least three jurisdictions" including Finland and Botswana, House said, adding that he was excited about the prospects for lithium mining in Canada. House said he was confident that there was broad political support in the US for improving access to critical minerals despite incoming president Donald Trump having indicated that he wants to roll back support for electric vehicles -- a key market for metals including lithium. There is "very broad bipartisan support for diversifying [the] supply of critical minerals" because this is a "national security priority", he said. "We've had plenty of conversations with people who will be associated with the next administration who are very enthusiastic about KoBold's mission." KoBold plans to hire "aggressively" and add data scientists who have a more traditional technology background to its teams, as well geoscientists to survey possible deposits and collect data, said House. The company was likely to go public within three to five years, he added. "There's a real demand from [mining] majors to partner with [KoBold] so clearly they're doing something right," said David George, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. "I don't think there's an obvious modern competitor in the space." KoBold has an exploration partnership with mining major BHP in Western Australia and is also working with Rio Tinto. Carmichael Roberts, managing partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, said KoBold's AI-driven approach to mineral exploration would create "a more secure, affordable, and clean energy future for all".

US mining startup backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos raises $537M

KoBold, a US mining startup backed by billionaire investors including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, raised $537 million in its latest funding round, the company said. The funding round, co-led by investors Durable Capital Partners LP and T. Rowe Price, valued KoBold at $2.96 billion, according to the company. Existing backers including venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which counts Bezos as an investor, also participated in the funding round, as well as new money from StepStone. The US mining startup has raised a whopping $1 billion to date as it seeks to undermine China's dominance in the mineral supply chain. KoBold uses artificial intelligence, including OpenAI's generative AI, to sift through historical and scientific data to find mineral deposits. The US relies heavily on China for the supply of in-demand metals like copper, lithium and nickel - used for mobile phones, data centers and batteries for electric vehicles. "KoBold's mission is to expand and diversify the global supply of critical resources essential for prosperity, energy technology, AI, and security," KoBold CEO Kurt House said in a statement. The multi-million-dollar investment will be used to fund new exploration projects and boost research and development, the company said. The funding will be used to advance "high-potential projects," like a huge copper deposit in Zambia that KoBold discovered last February, the company added. The $2 billion mine will produce at least 300,000 tons of copper per year, the company has said. "KoBold shows how the combination of scientific excellence and AI can enable the discovery of critical metals for the global energy transition," Henry Ellenbogen, managing partner and chief investment officer at Durable Capital Partners LP, said in a statement.

KoBold used AI to find copper. Now investors are piling in to the tune of $537M | TechCrunch

KoBold Metals closed a $537 million Series C round on Wednesday to help build a multi-billion dollar mine to exploit a copper deposit it found using AI. The new funding round, which was led by Durable Capital Partners and T Rowe Price, will be used to expand the company's exploration efforts on five continents and develop a massive copper deposit in Zambia. The funding round pushed KoBold's valuation to $2.96 billion, according to the Financial Times. The final close of the round netted the company $10 million more than it initially expected to raise. TechCrunch exclusively reported on the fundraise in October. Few industries are as ripe for technological disruption as mining. The business is famously risky: only about three in every 1,000 potential deposits are commercially viable. KoBold, which was founded in 2018, uses AI to comb through massive geological data sets in an attempt to improve the success rate. The company's decision to develop the Zambia resource, which it estimates is among the largest found, suggests that approach could pay off handsomely. Critical minerals have grown in importance in recent years as the U.S. and China have clashed over supplies. China has already banned shipments of antimony, gallium, and germanium to the U.S., and today it proposed restricting technologies for processing lithium and gallium. Andreessen Horowitz, Bond, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Earthshot VC, Equinor, July Fund, Mitsubishi, Standard Investments, StepStone, and WCM Investment Management also participated in the round. Previous investors include Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Jack Ma.

AI-powered mineral exploration company KoBold Metals raises $527M - SiliconANGLE

AI-powered mineral exploration company KoBold Metals raises $527M KoBold Metals, a Berkeley, California-based startup that specializes in using artificial intelligence to discover new deposits of metals critical for batteries and renewable energy, said today it raised $527 million in equity funding. The Series C funding round was co-led by existing investor T Rowe Price and joined by Durable Capital Partners. Other existing backers including billionaire Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures and venture capital group Andreesen Horowitz also participated in the round, along with new investors including StepStone. The company uses generative AI technology as well as more traditional machine learning algorithms to assist with exploring historical geophysical data sources in order to reveal mineral deposits that would otherwise be overlooked. In the modern day, most easy-to-find deposits have already been discovered and exploited, the deposits in the future will be more difficult to uncover, expensive to reach and the potential of projects failing could mean the losses of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Rare earth metals and minerals critical to electric car batteries, renewable energy systems, semiconductors and other technologies such as copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt are particularly lucrative to discover. They depend on analyzing enormous amounts of prospecting data. The company said that it invests more than $100 million annually across over 70 projects on five continents to assist with this search. In spite of advances in technology, and because of the push towards greener vehicles and AI, the industry's hunger for metals has continued to grow. The International Energy Agency estimates that by 2030 global copper mines will only meet 80% of the world's demands for the metal. As for lithium and cobalt, existing mines and construction projects will only meet those needs by half. In February, KoBold said it discovered an untapped copper deposit in Zambia. This has opened up a $2 billion underground mining site that is expected to produce at least 300,000 tonnes per year starting in the 2030s, the company said. KoBold co-founder and Chief Executive Kurt House told the Financial Times about 40% of the new funding would go to developing existing projects into mining sites. The Zambian project would take "the lion's share of that." House said that the company intends to begin hiring data scientists and geoscientists to its team to help survey and collect data to broaden the team. He added that the KoBold is likely to public in the next three to five years.