Highlights

• Most mining deals fail because technical reports like CPRs are written to sell rather than truthfully disclose risks, with inflated grades, vague tonnage, and minimized geological challenges.
• Venture capitalists conduct thorough due diligence and re-modeling; when discrepancies emerge between marketing claims and reality, deals collapse due to broken trust.
• Experienced investors prefer transparent data showing honest flaws over 'perfect' projects with selective disclosure—geology can be mitigated, but dishonesty cannot.

From a venture investor’s perspective, most mining deals fail for a simple reason: the technical data is written to sell, not to tell the truth. Or at least the experience conveyed by some VCs.

Permits are not assets. Licenses are not valuable. What matters is what’s in the ground—and whether the data describing it is honest. RareEarth Exchanges™ would argue a lot more, like what will it cost to get it out, and how much is it worth? And if its rare earth a set of other questions involving separation, refining and the like.

But back to the upstream mining, some investors fret (opens in a new tab) that too many Competent Person’s Reports (CPRs) and scoping studies read like marketing brochures dressed up as geology. Grades are rounded up, tonnage is vague, intrusive geology is minimized, and metallurgy is hand-waved away. Then, just in case, the report quietly disclaims responsibility for investment decisions.

An immediate red flag for VCs.

A CPR is not a pitch deck. It is a technical confession. Its job is to surface risk, not hide it. When a geologist obscures uncertainty to help a founder raise money, they don’t increase the odds of funding—they destroy them.

Investors will drill. Investors will remodel. And when discrepancies appear—as they often do—the deal dies instantly. Not because the project is unworkable, but because trust is gone, at least for many.

Experienced capital prefers difficult projects with transparent data over “perfect” projects built on selective disclosure. Honest flaws can be engineered around. Hidden ones cannot.

You can mitigate geology.

You cannot mitigate a lie.