The Elements of Innovation Discovered

Rio Tinto accelerates mining tech startups

Metal Tech News - April 25, 2025

Mining powerhouse partners with tech startup incubator to accelerate innovations reshaping the future of mining.

Founders Factory welcomes six new mining tech startups to the Mining Tech Accelerator, a program being advanced in partnership with Rio Tinto to accelerate and optimize innovative ideas that will reshape the future of mining.

"Through our Mining Tech Accelerator, Founders Factory and Rio Tinto are partnering with startups to develop breakthrough technologies that tackle key challenges in mining and sustainability," said Rio Tinto Chief Innovation Officer Dan Walker.

Unveiled last April, Mining Tech Accelerator combines Rio Tinto's mining acumen with Founders Factory's global network of business startup experts and venture capitalists. This partnership between the mining powerhouse and startup incubator aims to identify, foster, and mentor companies with breakthrough technologies that increase the efficiency and lower the environmental impact of producing the minerals critical to the global economy and clean energy transition.

"Reduced-impact mining sits front and center for the business, as they look for more efficient, less environmentally-impacting methods for the discovery and extraction of critical metals," said Founders Factory President George Northcott. "It's clear this represents a transformational change for the industry, paving the way for industrial transformation and decarbonization."

The Mining Tech Accelerator initiative comes amid a wave of industry investment into technologies that will accelerate the discovery of minerals needed for the energy transition and decarbonize the mining sector, with major players like BHP and Vale also backing early-stage mining tech solutions.

Rio Tinto

Mining Tech Accelerator combines Rio Tinto's mining acumen with Founder Factory's expertise in incubating startups.

Fostering mining tech

Last September, Founders Factory selected its first cohort of mining tech startups. Each company received seed funding and joined a four-month accelerator designed to transform innovative ideas into viable pilot projects. Through the program, the startup teams worked with the serial entrepreneurs at Founders Factory to identify use cases for their technologies and unlock potential future commercial opportunities with Rio Tinto.

The program culminated with a December meeting in Perth, Australia, that provided the mining startup teams an opportunity to network with Rio Tinto leadership, access local facilities and testing grounds, and pitch pilots and proofs of concepts to the team.

Standouts from the first Mining Tech Accelerator are: Endolith, a Colorado-based company that is leveraging the power of microbes to increase the recovery of critical minerals like copper and lithium from low-grade ores, and ProSpectral, a United Kingdom-based company that has designed a new ultra-compact spectral imaging sensor for material detection and analysis.

Six promising investments

The latest round of Mining Tech Accelerator startups includes six companies developing technologies that range from leveraging artificial intelligence in accelerating the discovery of critical minerals to improving the revegetation of mining sites after the minerals are extracted.

The new cohort of companies selected for Founders Factory's Mining Tech Accelerator program are:

Durin – A U.S. company that has developed automated drilling rigs to accelerate mineral discovery, improve worker safety, and reduce exploration costs.

Rock Zero – A U.S. company that is developing a process to extract lithium from hard rock deposits with fewer emissions, less energy, and lower waste than current methods.

Terra AI – A U.S. company that is leveraging AI to improve the accuracy of mineral exploration drilling, reducing the costs, environmental impact, and time to discover and delineate mineral deposits.

Ekion – An Australian company that has developed an electrokinetic in-situ recovery technology that uses an electric process to extract metals from stranded deposits without the need for excavation or fracking.

Rainstick – An Australian startup that is improving agriculture and nature restoration using electrical fields to mimic the natural effects of lightning, boosting seed yields faster and more sustainably.

Thunderstone – A U.S. startup backed by deep-tech investors that is developing a technology to reduce the impact of mining by using underground electric stimulation to extract critical metals with minimal waste and cost.

"Working with Rio Tinto has given us tremendous insight into key opportunities for innovation across the mining value chain, represented by these six promising investments," said Northcott.

With so many entrepreneurs from around the globe developing technologies to accelerate, optimize, and decarbonize 21st-century mining, Founders Factory and Rio Tinto plan to invest in 12 startups each year through the Mining Tech Accelerator program.

"Meeting the growing global energy demand is deeply complex, and collaboration is essential to delivering the materials the world needs – faster, more sustainably, and more cost-effectively," said Walker

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Metal Tech News

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With more than 17 years of covering mining, Shane is renowned for his insights and in-depth analysis of mining, mineral exploration, and technology metals.

 
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