Founders Factory

We build & fund startups together with visionary entrepreneurs and the world's leading companies.

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

🏥 Founders Factory has launched a new cross-border healthcare accelerator with Chicago-based @NorthwesternMed, one of America’s leading healthcare systems.

The partnership will bring Europe’s top AI and deeptech health startups into the world’s largest healthcare market 🇺🇸

AI is transforming healthcare, from earlier detection and chronic disease management to research acceleration and operational efficiency.

Through this four-month programme, selected pre-Series A startups will gain direct access to:

🔹Northwestern Medicine’s 11 hospitals, 5,400+ physicians and 200+ outpatient sites
🔹A partner-track to accelerate customer discovery, deployment and commercialisation
🔹Use case development & pilot execution with Northwestern in Chicago and The London Clinic in the UK
🔹A Residency Week in Chicago for customer roundtables and commercial discussions with Northwestern Medicine, organisations in the US healthcare ecosystem and connections with US investors

🗓 Applications close March 31, 2026
👉 Apply here: https://t.co/0KkeW0Dvsj

#HealthTech #AI #MedTech #Accelerator

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

🚀 Terra AI raises a $20M Series A.

Led by Khosla Ventures, with strategic investment from BHP Ventures, and backed by early investor Rio Tinto, the investment goes towards the mining industry's first AI-native subsurface modelling platform – giving mining, geothermal and carbon storage teams a fundamentally better way to understand what lies underground.

Terra AI maps uncertainty, producing continuous 3D resource models that tell teams where resources are, where confidence is high and where risk remains.

Across multiple deployments, the platform has reduced required drilling by 50–60%, accelerated Tier-1 projects by four to five years, and improved resource model prediction by two to three times.

Terra AI joined the Founders Factory and Rio Tinto Mining Tech accelerator at seed, and it‘s been exciting to watch the team grow from that early stage to a Series A of this quality.

Read about the raise in Axios: https://t.co/7hzCCkhsXe

Congrats to John Mern, PhD the entire Terra AI team on the milestone. 🌍

#Mining #MiningTech #SeriesA #Fundraising

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

CODE Cohort 4 has arrived in London.

A year ago Founders Factory launched the CODE Tech Founders Accelerator, bringing MENA's top early-stage entrepreneurs to London for six weeks of in-person programming, masterclasses and networking in partnership with Imperial College London and the Saudi Arabian Center of Digital Entrepreneurship. This week, we launch our fourth cohort.

CODE is aimed at promoting digital entrepreneurship and innovation in Saudi Arabia and MENA, as well as building connections between their startup ecosystems and the UK & Europe

Over the next six weeks, founders will gain direct access to Founders Factory’s operations team for a range of workshops, masterclasses, and 1-2-1 surgeries, designed at giving founders critical insights into commercialising and scaling their business.

A warm welcome to each startup joining us:

Qanoniah قانونية | moneymoon | SDM | Dal دال | Jozo | جزء | siolla | سيولا سيولا | TABsense | غرينتا هب | GrintaHub | Eventful Group | Talento HRMS | تالنتوالنتو | Limeless Studio | GigSA Event Staffing Solution | CASHIN | كاشـن | resilience | Entropy Minds | SportLOOP | Twinn Health | Mazoom Company | WePay | Trustworthy Partner | OjrahApp

#VentureBuilder #fintech #hrtech #healthtech #MENA

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

We’re proud to announce the inaugural cohort of the MSWA Multiple Sclerosis & Neurological Care Accelerator.

These five ventures are building the future of neurological care, each one tackling a different dimension of life with MS and related conditions.

The programme, delivered by Founders Factory in partnership with MSWA, was announced in the Wall Street Journal today - highlighting the cohort’s role in connecting cutting-edge healthcare technologies directly to the people who need it most.

Our partnership with Northwestern Medicine was also highlighted for accelerating European healthtech innovations entry into the US market.

The five ventures joining the inaugural MS & Neurological Care cohort are: https://t.co/B18fTWPeof

upLYFT – a Movement Intelligence platform that transforms textiles into an invisible layer of health and performance understanding. https://t.co/XoXjrwXCGf
NeuroSonic – preventing strokes through rapid, AI-powered vascular assessments. https://t.co/bW5QxV3K4u
Fluent – restoring communication through AI and low-risk neurotechnology. https://t.co/8voY0zf0gD
Clarity – a wearable device delivering immersive gamma sensory stimulation therapy to treat neurodegenerative diseases, including fatigue for individuals with MS. https://t.co/EG9hk8Fbv5
ReVimo – a portable robotic self-transfer device that enables individuals with mobility challenges to get out of bed and perform self-care tasks safely and independently. https://t.co/nQ9ZgrwsLe
As one of Australia's leading providers of MS and neurological care, MSWA brings something no conventional accelerator can — direct access to clients, clinicians, service delivery teams and the lived experience that turns a promising technology into one that actually works in the real world.

These five teams spent time with MSWA's clients and care teams in Perth last week. Access shapes everything.

We’re proud to be building a programme that truly accelerates the time between research and delivery alongside Melanie Kiely and the MSWA team - and to be partnering with founders who chose to build in one of the most complex and consequential areas of healthcare.

🔗 Read the Wall Street Journal feature: Neurological Care

#healthtech #Multiple Sclerosis #Neurological Care #accelerator

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

The Founders Factory Venture Studio is building a new generation of healthcare companies in partnership with one of the world's leading industrial healthcare groups.

We're looking for founders to build with us.

Ageing populations, rising rates of chronic disease, workforce shortages and mounting cost pressures are all accelerating the shift towards care delivered beyond traditional clinical settings. Remote health monitoring sits at the centre of that transition.

The clinical end of this market alone is expected to grow from ~$30bn today to more than $200bn by 2035.

But collecting data is only part of the challenge. The companies that will define this space won't just generate insights; they'll be integrated into care pathways, helping clinicians and caregivers make better decisions and intervene earlier.

We've spent months exploring where the largest value pools sit, what is technically possible versus what meaningfully influences clinical outcomes, and where the toughest problems remain unsolved.

We're now building and backing founders working in:

→ Clinical remote patient monitoring
→ Hospital at home
→ Elder care tech
→ At-home diagnostics
→ Remote monitoring infrastructure

If you're building in one of these areas, or thinking about it, we want to hear from you. Learn more and apply to build with us below. 

 https://t.co/lxVEBmOJrI

#healthtech #medtech #venturebuilding

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

Startup Bulletin #62 is here.

Featuring insights from our founders, operators and partners across the FF network.

Inside this edition:

- Defending ocean environments and national sovereignty with dual-use
- Raluca Ciobancan on setting standards over values with your first hire
- Looking back at Ecosperity Week
- Wrapping up Perth Residency week
- Job openings
- HydraLink's Simon Taylor on building the world's first intelligent consumer water platform
- Supra Elemental Recovery's Katie Ullmann Durham on next-generation critical minerals separation and refining

Read it here: https://t.co/tQg7FLpFs5

#VentureBuilding #Startups

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

To mark the second day of Perth Residency Week we caught up with HydraLink co-founder and CEO Simon Taylor.

Part of our Nature Tech Cohort with Government of Western Australia, Simon tells us about HydraLink's world-first wireless valve technology and what it means to be building a globally scalable business from Western Australia.

Read the full piece 👉 https://t.co/dNqMqMrlVP

#LiveFromPerth #ResidencyWeek #NatureTech #FoundersFactory #HydraLink #WaterTech #WesternAustralia

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

🇦🇺 Our Perth Residency Week opened on Monday with a traditional Aboriginal smoking ceremony, performed to welcome our founders, partners and team to Country.

A smoking ceremony is one of the oldest and most significant practices in Aboriginal culture. Aromatic plants and leaves are burned to produce smoke that carries healing and protective properties. The ceremony cleanses a space of negative energy, connecting those present to Country, and offering a blessing to those who have travelled from elsewhere.

It was fitting that this week brings together three of our Western Australian programmes simultaneously for the first time: our Mining Tech and Nature Tech cohorts with Rio Tinto and the Government of Western Australia, and the inaugural cohort of the MS & Neurological Care Accelerator with MSWA.

Founders working across critical minerals, nature restoration and neurological care, welcomed in a ceremony that speaks to the deep connection between people, place and healing.

Across the next five days these founders, at the halfway point of their programmes will be going through an intensive week designed to accelerate the journey towards commercial reality.

Startups will receive deep-dive business case sessions with partners, pitch days with Western Australian investors and ecosystem leaders, customer validation workshops and focused work on regulation, market entry and commercial partnerships.

#WesternAustralia #ResidencyWeek #MiningTech #NatureTech #Perth

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

Today, Founders Factory joins HSBC, Third Derivative and the Venture Climate Alliance at the Philanthropy Asia Summit in Singapore - as part of the Future Industries Partnership.

This particular session, Startup to Scale Up: Accelerating the Deployment of Climate Solutions in Asia, goes into the practical questions that determine whether capital reaches the solutions that need it.

The panel consists of practitioners working across the full capital stack, from early-stage venture to institutional deployment:

🔹 Natalie Blyth, Global Head of Sustainable Finance and Transition, HSBC
🔹 George Northcott, Co-Founder & President, Founders Factory
🔹 Roy Torbert, Head of Programmes, Third Derivative
🔹 Sara Simonds, Executive Director, Venture Climate Alliance

Southeast Asia represents one of the most significant and complex climate deployment environments in the world with enormous emissions exposure and rapidly growing economies.

The session is designed to close the financing gap between the capital available and the projects ready to receive it.

The Future Industries Partnership brings together Founders Factory, HSBC, Third Derivative and RMI to connect early-stage climate and deep tech ventures with major industrial operators across the region.

📸 Photo from yesterday’s opening event

#PhilanthropyAsiaSummit #Ecosperity #ClimateTech #SustainableFinance #FutureIndustriesPartnership #Singapore

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

Tonight in Singapore, Founders Factory and HSBC are hosting the Industrial Innovator Programme Gala

The evening brings together founders, investors and industrial operators with the time and context to have genuinely useful conversations.

The evening opens with remarks from Gilbert Ck Ng, HSBC Singapore Head of Banking, followed by a keynote from Natalie Blyth, HSBC's Global Head of Sustainable Finance and Transition - on the role of catalytic capital in unlocking first-of-a-kind technology at industrial scale.

This will be followed by a panel discussion on Beyond the Blueprint: Catalytic Capital and First-of-a-Kind Technology Finance - moderated by Founders Factory CEO Henry Lane Fox, with perspectives from:

🔹 Matt Hessey, HSBC Sustainable Finance 🔹 Pekka Santasalo, Head of Growth & Ventures, Rio Tinto 🔹 Pavina Adunratanaseea, Founding Partner, ArkTerra Partners 🔹 Peter Majeranowski, CEO, Circ

The discussion focuses on what it takes to finance and deploy emerging industrial technologies beyond the pilot or proof of concept into the infrastructure decisions that determine whether a technology reaches the market or stalls in development.

The evening closes with an Innovator Showcase, with three ventures presenting to the room:

🔹 Nanoweave - Javier Berrocal, CEO 🔹 VyCarb - Garrett Boudinot, CEO 🔹 Nandina REM - Karina Cady, CEO

We are proud to be hosting this alongside HSBC as part of Ecosperity Week - one of Asia's most significant gatherings at the intersection of capital, sustainability and industrial innovation.

Tomorrow we will be at the Philanthropy Asia Summit with the Future Industries Partnership.
Get in touch if you are in Singapore this week and want to connect with the team.

#IndustrialInnovator #SustainableFinance #ClimateTech #Singapore #Ecosperity

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

Last week, eight founding teams - selected from 800+ applications - took to the stage at R[3]sidency Demo Day, closing out 16 weeks of building to pitch to 100+ international investors.

The programme, created by @fabric_vc, @coinbase , @base, @animocabrands and Founders Factory, confirmed the central motivation of the accelerator; that the machine economy is here, and these are the startups building it:

🔹 @autodotfun_ : a non-custodial AI-powered wallet turning plain language into executed positions across spot, perpetuals, prediction markets, tokenized equities and yield, all from one interface.
🔹 @kash_bot : the first prediction market protocol embedded natively in social media feeds, letting anyone predict on real-time headlines by simply quote-posting.
🔹 @robinmarketsxyz : institutional-grade financial services for prediction markets, enabling users to earn DeFi-native yield on long-dated positions without leverage or surrendering exposure.
🔹 @polldotfun : the betting layer for group chats. Create a bet, fund with Apple Pay, share with friends and automate settlement inside iMessage or Telegram.
🔹 Parabol Labs: building at the frontier of the Machine Economy.
🔹 @Unifiedmargin: collateral mobility infrastructure letting asset managers use crypto assets as collateral to access traditional financial markets in a cross-margin setup.
🔹 @betterasaweb : where founders and their communities build, fund and earn from shared projects. When anyone can build a product, Web is how you bootstrap distribution.
🔹 Lexifina: a platform built bottom-up for core law firm operations, giving partners full visibility of the AI drafting process - prompts, citations, tool calls - to assess model decision-making and track how juniors are using AI.
🔹 @rosetta_hl : the infrastructure layer for institutional on-chain yield, already routing $300M+ across HyperEVM and Base, generating 9.01% APY over a 72-day benchmark window on a $100M cohort without leverage.
The programme received support from the Department for Business and Trade, reflecting the UK's growing position at the intersection of Web3 and AI and the depth of the ecosystem forming around it.

Congratulations to the full cohort.

#R3sidency #Web3 #AgenticEconomy #MachineEconomy #DemoDay

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

Will AI make insurance cheaper?

Our fintech director Olly Betts put the question to two founders building at the intersection of AI and insurance.

Tim Graham of Malcolm, part of our venture studio with Aviva, argues the operational costs of serving insurance should fall significantly as AI removes the distribution and administration overhead that currently sits between a policy and the person who needs it.

Freddie Gjertsen of Prompted points out that your ability to find cheaper insurance will improve dramatically - and we already know from price comparison that when people can find cheaper, they buy cheaper.

Watch the full video on how AI will change insurance by 2029 👉 https://t.co/cppdRH0FQo

#Insurtech #AI #Insurance #AIrails

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

The clinical consensus on stroke recovery holds that meaningful progress plateaus at six months.

Kourosh Sam Kamali, neuroscientist and founder of Myonerv, believes that consensus is wrong and has spent the better part of a decade building the evidence to prove it.

In our latest feature, Kourosh argues that the plateau is not a biological ceiling but a function of therapy withdrawal.

That the brain remains plastic long after the system stops investing in it. And that the patients written off by conventional rehabilitation - severely paralysed, years post-stroke - represent not a lost cause but a massively underserved market that nobody has properly built for.

Topical reading for founders building in regulated industries, for those navigating the gap between clinical research and commercial product, and for anyone thinking seriously about where durable opportunities in European health tech actually lie.

👉 https://t.co/rNDo9hxvIq

#HealthTech #MedTech #Neurorehabilitation #Founders #DeepTech

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

With increasingly volatile European energy markets and households locked into standard contracts, the case for community-owned energy infrastructure has become ever more appealing.

When households collectively finance a share of a solar park, they lock in the price of the majority of their consumption for up to fifteen years - insulated from the spot market movements that continue to drive energy bills higher.

RemoteSolar Co-Founder Michael Schmitz makes the argument from first principles, why the structural weaknesses of the current energy model are creating a durable opportunity for community energy, and what it takes to build the infrastructure to deliver it.

Read the full piece 👉 https://t.co/aVYELvpRnR

#ClimateTech #EnergyTransition #CommunityEnergy

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

A full and productive quarter across the Founders Factory ecosystem. Here's a look back at what happened in Q1 2026: https://t.co/0KkeW0Dvsj

Updates from FF HQ 🏢

🔹 Launched a new cross-border healthcare accelerator with Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine - find out more about the accelerator:
🔹 Ranked #3 in Sifted's 2026 UK & Ireland Investor Ranking, recognising investors backing the region's fastest-growing companies.
🔹 Announced the Hospital to Community Accelerator cohort, delivered in partnership with Innovate UK, supporting ten startups shifting care closer to home, culminating with a demo day in London
🔹 Hosted an AI and critical mineral discovery session at Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) 2026 in Toronto in partnership with TD Bank Group and alongside Unearthed Solutions and the CleanAI Initiative
🔹 Launched the HSBC Industrial Innovator Programme, connecting early-stage climate tech companies with major industrial operators across South East Asia
🔹 Announced Rio Tinto Mining Tech Accelerator Cohort 4 – six new startups selected from 500+ applications, with the global portfolio now having raised $120M in follow-on funding
🔹 Announced the winners of the LANDCROS Innovation Studios Mining Challenge with Hitachi Construction Machinery, with ten startups selected to pitch in Brisbane in April
🔹 Hosted an Aviva x Founders Factory Pitch Day, bringing together standout startups building across insurance, health and wealth
🔹 Launched Malcolm, a new studio venture building compliant AI agent infrastructure for the insurance industry

Highlights from global portfolio 🌍

🌍 Hades Mining raised €15M Seed to build the world's first tech-enabled laser drilling extraction company
🌍 Tembo raised £16M to scale its digital savings and mortgage platform
🌍 WealthAi raised $1M pre-seed to build an AI-native operating system for wealth managers and family offices
🌍 Origin raised a Series B to scale musculoskeletal care for women across the US
🌍 Alomana raised €4M to accelerate its AI operating layer for enterprise execution
🌍 Acre was acquired by ClearScore Group – a major milestone for the mortgage adviser platform built in the Founders Factory studio
🌍 Armada Technologies signed an agreement with TUI Cruises to install its Passive Air Lubrication System, reducing hull drag and fuel consumption at sea
🌍 Nebuly joined the Fastweb Investment Programme, building the analytics layer for enterprise AI interactions
🌍 Venga secured investment to build the operating system for community gatherings and real-world experiences

#Q1Highlights #VentureBuilding

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

🧬 AI-enabled technologies are already evolving healthcare from earlier detection and chronic disease management to faster research and system-wide efficiency.

Nowhere is that shift more visible than cancer care, which is moving rapidly from hospital-led treatment to technology-enabled care pathways.

As part of our Healthcare Accelerator partnership with Northwestern Medicine, we're exploring the market trends across key healthcare specialties, starting this week with oncology. Four themes we’re watching closely:

🔹 Computational pathology
AI is extracting new diagnostic signal from digital slides, improving tumour classification, grading, and biomarker prediction while helping labs manage rising volumes.

🔹 Biomarker-first oncology
Treatment decisions are becoming increasingly guided by molecular signatures, with genomic profiling and companion diagnostics shaping care from day one.

🔹 Early detection screening AI
From mammography and lung CT to other population screening workflows, AI is boosting sensitivity, supporting triage, and reducing missed findings, especially where radiology backlogs are growing.

🔹 AI workflow + decision support
AI tools that can triage scans, support pathology interpretation and help clinicians prioritise cases, reducing backlogs and freeing teams to focus on patients.

If you’re building in oncology across diagnostics, care delivery infrastructure, AI decision support or advanced therapies, apply to the Northwestern Medicine x Founders Factory Healthcare Accelerator before the deadline.

👉 Apply here: https://t.co/0KkeW0Dvsj

#Oncology #HealthTech #AIinHealthcare #DigitalHealth #MedTech #PrecisionMedicine #Biotech #StartupAccelerator

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

⛏️ One week to go: LANDCROS Innovation Studios Mining Challenge Pitch Day (Brisbane)
In one week, finalists pitch live at The Precinct in Brisbane to an international panel of Hitachi Construction Machinery global executives, investors and Tier-1 mining leaders with three Grand Winners announced across:

✅ Smarter Machines
✅ Smarter Mine Sites
✅ Low Impact & Sustainable Mining

We’re also excited to confirm our keynote speakers:

Eiji Fukunishi, Vice President and Executive Officer, President of the Mining Business Unit, Hitachi Construction Machinery, who has been instrumental in driving the company's strategy and expansion to become a true solutions provider to the mining industry, focusing on open partnerships and innovative safety, sustainability, digitalisation, and electrification technologies.

Dr Neville Plint, CEO of Mining3: a world-leading mining research organisation directed by global mining industry members to deliver transformational technology for productivity, sustainability and safety.

Dr Plint has spent his career driving operational performance on mine sites through the development and implementation of new technologies, and brings deep leadership experience across industry and research. He previously served as Director of the Sustainable Minerals Institute (UQ) and held multiple senior roles at Anglo American, including Head of R&D and Head of Business Improvement Projects.

Discussions will focus on how to test and trial new technologies faster at site, with international and local industry leaders and investors Rio Tinto, BHP, Chrysalix VC, Main Sequence Ventures, Counterpart VC, IMDEX, Mitsubishi, Bradken, Daiwa, Itochu and JGC Corporation and Amira Global. Other startups from around the world Rithmik Solutions, TALPA Solutions and HINDSITE Industries who have successfully collaborated with Hitachi Construction Machinery will be part of the Demo Zone.

If you’re in Brisbane next week and working at the intersection of mining, automation, data and sustainability, we’d love to see you there.

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

🚨Open healthtech founder roles

We’re backing exceptional healthcare founders and researchers who are reimagining how care is delivered, connected, and safeguarded from hospital to home.
Over a billion people globally face challenges tied to how healthcare is delivered, from fragmented care coordination and long wait times to limited visibility across patients, facilities and care environments.

Whether you’re a first-time founder, researcher, or a seasoned operator building again, this is an opportunity to tackle healthcare’s largest and most urgent challenges including:

🔷Cardiovascular Remote Monitoring
🔷Senior Living & Residential Monitoring
🔷Skilled Nursing Facility Intelligence
🔷Healthcare Cybersecurity & IoMT Protection
🔷Medical Device & Supply Logistics
🔷Capacity Management & Patient Flow Optimisation
🔷Chronic Condition Remote Monitoring
🔷Family & Caregiver Enablement
🔷Maternal Health Innovation

We co‑build from the start and provide:

- €275k pre‑seed capital to kickstart venture development.
- Six months of hands‑on operational support from senior operators in product, commercialisation, fundraising, and engineering.
- Healthcare system access, with routes into clinics, hospitals, and industry partners to validate use‑cases and accelerate adoption.
- A global founder and investor network, unlocking collaboration and capital.

You don’t need an idea or a team to apply - just deep domain expertise, conviction, and the drive to transform healthcare.

Apply to build with us here: https://t.co/uhQaidSdvk
Or tag a founder, operator, or researcher who should be part of the future of connected care below.

#HealthTech #HealthCare #FounderRoles

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

🚨Founder Roll-Call: we’re hiring founders to lead two new ventures tackling structural bottlenecks in the materials and labour markets for construction, from our office in Berlin.

These are rare opportunities for founder-operators who want to build with capital, deep operational support and a major corporate partner:

🛠️ Founder & CEO: GreenCircle - Bankability Layer for Sustainable Construction (Germany/Hybrid)
With Vonovia: build the evidence platform that makes sustainable materials bankable through pilots + procurement-ready data that unlock adoption. €760k backing.
Apply here: https://t.co/EopYwVA4R6

🛠️ Founder & CEO: MeisterMatch - AI-Native Recruiter for Skilled Trades (Germany/Hybrid)
With Vonovia: build an AI-native recruiter for Germany’s skilled trades shortage - WhatsApp/voice onboarding and 48-hour shortlists, with instant demand from 355 live roles. €760k backing.
Apply here: https://t.co/6RFsZTIdoA

If you’re ready to build platforms that compound for people and systems, we’d love to hear from you.

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

🎉 Portfolio exit: DaySmart acquires Slick

DaySmart, a US leader in vertical SaaS and payments, has acquired Slick – the UK payments-led software platform used by thousands of hair and beauty professionals.

Backed early by Founders Factory, Slick built modern infrastructure for an industry that was still running on paper diaries and disconnected tools.

Their all-in-one platform powers bookings, websites, payments, customer comms, marketing and reporting.

8,000+ professionals use Slick and it has processed £300m+ in bookings in 2025 alone.
As part of the combined roadmap, DaySmart and Slick are developing an AI-native business coach to turn real-time platform data into actionable recommendations for salon owners.

Huge congratulations to Steph Madgett, Robert Smith and the entire Slick team.

#SaaS #Exit #PaymentProvider

[Founders Factory @foundersfactory]

🚀 Announcing Rio Tinto Mining Tech Accelerator Cohort 4.

These six new mining tech startups will be tackling the unprecedented demand for iron ore, copper, lithium and critical minerals.

The cohort will test, pilot and commercialise deeptech powering efficiency. Leveraging AI, advanced chemistry and spatial data to make exploration faster, processing cleaner, and recovery more economical.

Selected from 500+ applications, the cohort is built on world-class technical talent from Cambridge, Stanford, Harvard Business School, McGill and the University of Calgary.

The new startups and founders are:

🔷Chemshift Technologies Inc. (Calgary, CA): Low-cost lithium refining to transform the North American value chain. Founders: Drew Moxon

🔷 Foresight Spatial Labs (Ottawa, CA): Building the world’s most advanced Spatial SDK for Engineering and Physical AI. Founders: Julian Ramirez Ruiseco, Aevyrie Roessler

🔷Supra Elemental Recovery (Austin, US): Supramolecular receptor platform turning waste streams into high-purity critical minerals. Founders: Katie Ullmann Durham, Jordan Sessler

🔷 Material Difference (Cambridge, UK): Explainable AI that cuts drilling costs by over 50%. Founders: Gabriel Yoong, Luke Cullen

🔷 VOLUNA (Boston, US): Autonomous geochemical data collection providing faster, more accurate subsurface mineral mapping. Founders: Alexander Strange , Aaron Olson, Elias P. Fernandini

🔷 Watergenics (Berlin, DE): AI-driven, real-time water quality monitoring for water-intensive mining processes. Founders: Dr. Liviu Mantescu

The Mining Tech Accelerator’s global portfolio has now raised $120M in follow-on funding, including Hades Mining (€15M Seed), Spoor (€8M Series A) and Vycarb ($5M Seed), with three startups now entering deployments in Western Australia.

🗞️ Read more about the new cohort in Metal Tech News: https://t.co/zrYYIIlsXR

#MiningTech hashtag#CriticalMinerals hashtag#DeepTech hashtag#AI hashtag#EnergyTransition hashtag#Innovation