Who Is Funding the Next Wave of Mining Technology?

Over the last few years, the growth of mining technology has become increasingly visible.

Whilst there is no single global dataset that neatly tracks the number of mining tech startups or the total capital flowing into the sector, we at Unearthed monitor and continue to engage with innovators approaching the sector.

The collective shift in both R&D efforts and funding pathways can be seen across a combination of changing geopolitical priorities, venture funding, and government support.

These signals point to a broader change, that mining technology is no longer being funded only as a niche industrial category.

It is increasingly sitting at the intersection of critical minerals, national security, and productivity through emerging segments like industrial AI.

This is bringing new eyes and capital into the mining technology sector.

The geopolitical backdrop matters

One of the biggest drivers is the growing focus on critical minerals supply chains.

Across the US, Europe and Australia, governments are looking more closely at how strategic minerals are extracted, refined and recycled. The policy direction is increasingly clear with reliance on current processing capabilities now being treated as a strategic issue, rather than simply a market issue.

Therefore, technologies supporting mineral exploration, processing, rare earth recovery, and alternative refining infrastructure can now sit within a much larger policy and investment thesis.

The result is a wider funding environment than mining technology has historically enjoyed.

The funding mix is broadening

Mining innovation has traditionally relied heavily on operators, OEMs, research institutions and internal R&D programmes.

Those pathways remain important. But they are now being joined by a much broader ecosystem.

Today, capital can come from:

• Corporate venture funds
• Specialist mining and industrial VCs
• Defence linked investors
• Government grants and strategic funding
• Accelerators and venture builders

This is creating more pathways for technologies that may previously have struggled to move from technical concept into commercial deployment.

Corporate venture capital is becoming more visible

Several major mining and industrial groups now have formal investment pathways into emerging technology.

Some focus on strategic minority investments. Others create structured avenues for very early stage companies. Some are primarily looking for technologies relevant to existing operations, while others have broader energy transition or industrial mandates.

The important point here is that there is now a funnel of both funding and structured support for emerging mining applicable technologies that may not have been available even five years ago.

Venture capital is moving into “mining only” technologies

Looking specifically at technologies with a strong or primary mining application, several major rounds stand out over the last two years:

Our analysis of publicly disclosed rounds suggests that, excluding companies that have increasingly evolved toward asset ownership or mine development, funding into predominantly “mining only” technologies reached approximately US$0.8bn–US$1.0bn across the two years to 2026.

Note: We have excluded several other large “technology raises” where the distinction between funding technology development and acquiring or developing mining assets has become increasingly blurred. For example, KoBold’s US$537 million raise in January 2025 has not been included.

That capital, however, has not been distributed evenly, with the most visible areas including:

• Mineral exploration
• Direct lithium extraction
• Rare earth and critical minerals recovery
• Bioleaching and alternative processing

The common thread is that many of these technologies address problems extending beyond incremental mine site productivity, and could potentially unlock stepped change in an industry that has on occasion been cast as hard to innovate within.

The dual use category may be just as important

There is another category that is harder to quantify but potentially just as significant, dual use technologies that were not built exclusively for mining.

Examples include navigation systems for GPS denied environments, autonomy for heavy mobile equipment, or computer vision for industrial applications.

Companies such as Advanced Navigation and Bedrock Robotics illustrate the point.

Their technologies may have clear mining applications, but mining is not necessarily their only market. This matters because some of the most scalable technologies entering mining may be developed across adjacent industries first.

The technology can then be adapted into mining once it has stronger funding, a more mature product and a broader commercial base.

Our analysis suggests that disclosed funding into dual-use technologies with credible mining applicability may represent a further US$400m–US$600m across CY2024 and CY2025.

Who is backing mining technology?

The investor base is also becoming more diverse.

Across publicly disclosed deals reviewed from mid-2024 onward, active participants included:

This is not an exhaustive list, but it showcases those who have been active across two or more deals within the last two years.

Alongside mining specialists and corporate venture arms, the investor base now includes climate funds, deep tech investors, defence-linked capital and major mainstream venture firms. Many are first time participants in the sector, joining a long tail of single deal investors now testing exposure to mining technology.

The bigger opportunity for mining

The most interesting observation may not be the headline funding total. It is that the ecosystem supporting mining technology is becoming more mature. 

There are now more investors willing to fund technical risk, more accelerators building sector specific pipelines and more adjacent technologies capable of crossing into mining.

For mining companies, this broadens the opportunity!

Engagement does not necessarily require building a dedicated corporate venture fund. Operators can partner with active investors, accelerators and venture builders. They can provide technical guidance, operational context, and trial environments to industry validation.

The mining sector has long argued that commercialising new technology is difficult. However, the capital and support ecosystem around mining innovation is changing quickly, and the next generation of mining technology may be funded by a much broader group of players than the industry has historically expected.

The question is no longer simply whether more mining technology is being developed. 

It is whether the industry is looking broadly enough to see where it is coming from.