Rare Earth Exchanges

Billionaires Including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos Invest in AI-powered Rare Earth Mining Venture, Seeking Advantage for Big Payout

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Hightlights

  • Kobold Metals secures $491 million for AI-powered rare earth mining.
  • Backed by billionaires, it aims to enhance global energy transitions.
  • Founders are committed to advancing green technologies.

A company leveraging Artificial intelligence (AI) just secured $491 million based on regulatory filings. The goal of Kobold Metals (opens in a new tab) based in Berkeley, California is to use AI to discover new deposits of mission-critical minerals from lithium to copper, key inputs for transitions in global energy markets.

Founded in 2018, billionaires backed Kobold Metals including investors such as Bill Gates, Jack Ma, as well as Jeff Bezos, and rich venture capitalist firms including Andreessen Horowitz and investor T. Rowe Price which led the startup’s previous round.

As reported by Jennifer L writing for Carbon Credits (opens in a new tab), the startup hit a $1 billion valuation last year. The Wall Street Journal reported a company mission to increase its valuation to $2 billion with the completion of the current funding round.

According to Carbon Credits, this financing should be one of the largest climate-tech capital raises of 2024, behind only a $621 million Series E round by Ascend Elements (opens in a new tab), a company focused on renewable battery production according to data from Pitchbook.

What does the company do?

They use machine learning and computer vision technologies to help in the process of locating rare earth minerals (opens in a new tab). Targeted minerals such as copper and lithium represent a key input for the development of electric vehicles (EVs), renewable energy storage (opens in a new tab), and other technologies that are key to the global shift toward greener energy systems.

When did the company get its start?

The company got its start a few years ago, pursuing battery metals in northern Quebec, Canada. Their mining efforts detected lithium (opens in a new tab) near Glencore’s Raglan nickel (opens in a new tab) mine. Since then, the company expanded its exploration to about a dozen properties across Zambia, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Western Australia.

These ventures are often formed through joint partnerships, including collaborations with BHP and BlueJay Mining to explore critical minerals in Greenland.

Founders

The founders of KoBold Metals (opens in a new tab) are Kurt House, (opens in a new tab) Josh Goldman (opens in a new tab), and Jeff Jurinak (opens in a new tab):

  • Kurt House: Co-founder and CEO of KoBold Metals. House has a Ph.D. in Earth & Planetary Science from Harvard University. He has also worked as a consultant at Bain & Company, a research fellow at MIT, and founded C12 Energy.
  • Josh Goldman: Co-founder and president of KoBold Metals. Goldman has a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University. He previously worked at Phase Change Resources as senior vice president of corporate development.
  • Jeff Jurinak: Co-founder of KoBold Metals.

The three founders met in 2014 while working at Phase Change Resources, where they developed an oil and gas acquisition platform. They are all interested in the intersection of energy and technology, with backgrounds in strategy, carbon sequestration, and reservoir engineering.

Rare Earth Exchanges monitors the companies, players, and unfolding events involved with the changing rare earth materials value chain.

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