Founders Factory and Rio Tinto to support six technology startups

Founders Factory teamed up with Rio Tinto in April, with the miner to invest AUS$14.4 million in global pre-seed and seed stage start-ups over the next three years. The investment will focus on technologies in the fields of safe mine operations, decarbonisation, exploration processing, and automation.

The first cohort of startups have now been selected to go through the newly-established Mining Tech Accelerator. These are:

• Endolith – increases copper recovery from low-grade ores in heap leaches by harnessing microbial communities, synthetic biology techniques, and a cloud-native platform (Denver, USA).
• ProSpectral – next generation computer vision for material detection and analysis (Cambridge, UK).
• BluumBio – enzyme database for removing pollutants from soil, air, and water (Berkeley, USA).
• Sunchem – developing sustainable leaching and Nano Filter technologies for the precision separation of critical metals (Berkeley, USA).
• Vycarb – developing, deploying, and marketing tools that enable billion-tonne fully-measured carbon dioxide removal and storage (Brooklyn, USA).
• Magmatic – building a library of metal-binding proteins, focusing initially on lithium recovery (Vienna, Austria).

As well as receiving seed capital, these six startups will enter a four-month accelerator programme operated by Founders Factory. The aim of the programme is to help the founders identify use cases for their technologies and unlock potential future commercial opportunities with Rio Tinto.

The programme will culminate in Perth in December, offering opportunities to network with Rio leaders, access local facilities and testing grounds, and pitch pilots and POCs to the team.

This will draw on Founders Factory’s experience of backing over 300 startups, who have collectively gone on to raise over US$1 billion since 2015 and secured over 300 contracts with its corporate partners.

Dan Walker, Rio Tinto Chief Innovation Officer, said: “Rio has a proud history of innovation, and our purpose today is to find better ways to provide the materials the world needs. My team is charged with harnessing science and technology to strengthen the Rio of today and drive growth for the future via new revenue streams. Many of the challenges we must address to support the energy transition don’t have solutions today, so innovation is vital. And it has to happen at speed. Partnering with startups is key to delivering on our innovation strategy and we are delighted to welcome this first cohort of companies to the Founders Factory Mining Tech Accelerator programme.”

Henry Lane Fox, CEO of Founders Factory, added: “We understand the vast opportunity ahead in decarbonising and technologically transforming one of the world’s most important industries – mining. This first cohort of startups represents opportunities for disruption across the mining value chain, from material detection to waste remediation. I’m excited to see the value that founders can gain not just from our own venture-building expertise, but from senior level access to the leadership team of Rio Tinto, one of the world’s biggest mining companies.”

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/16102024/founders-factory-and-rio-tinto-to-support-six-technology-startups/