Gates, Bezos-backed KoBold Metals raises $537 million in race for critical minerals
KoBold Metals has raised $537 million in its latest funding round as it seeks to become a key player in the race for critical minerals needed for the energy transition.
Backed by investors such as Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, the company said its Series C funding round valued KoBold at $2.96 billion.
The round was co-led by new investor Durable Capital Partners LP and a pair of T. Rowe Price funds making their first investment in the company.
The financing included participation from existing KoBold investors Andreessen Horowitz Growth, BOND, Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, Earthshot Ventures, Equinor, July Fund, Mitsubishi Corporation, and Standard Investments, as well as new investors StepStone Group and WCM Investment Management.
The Berkeley, California-based KoBold uses artificial intelligence to find deposits of minerals such as copper, lithium and nickel.
According to the company, the investment will fund new exploration, help bring “high-potential” projects to production, and bolster research and development. To date, it has raised $1 billion.
In February, KoBold teamed up with Canada’s Midnight Sun Mining (TSXV: MMA) to explore the Zambian Copperbelt. Midnight Sun’s project lies just a few kilometers from First Quantum Minerals’ (TSX: FM) Kansanshi mine, Africa’s largest copper mining complex.
The Dumbwa target KoBold will be exploring sits in the southern portion of the Solwezi project and features a 20-km-long soil anomaly with a peak grade of 0.73% copper.
Drill highlights from Dumbwa include:
- 13 metres of 0.63% copper, including 3 metres of 1.3% copper, starting from 85 metres downhole;
- 12 metres of 0.65% copper, including 6 metres of 1.06% copper, starting from surface;
- 13.5 metres of 0.77% copper from 5 metres;
- 16 metres of 1.24% copper from 164 metres; and
- 15 metres of 0.71% copper from 34 metres.
KoBold aims to produce at least 300,000 tonnes per year by 2030 at its $2 billion Mingomba flagship project, making it the country’s largest copper operation. The company said it will begin sinking the mining shaft in the first half of 2026.
KoBold’s co-founder and chief executive Kurt House said about 40% of the new capital would be spent on developing existing projects into mines, with the Zambian copper project taking “the lion’s share of that.”
Quest for battery metals
KoBold began its quest for battery metals almost five years ago in Canada, after it acquired rights to an area in northern Quebec, just south of Glencore’s Raglan nickel mine, where it detected lithium.
The startup is now advancing 60 active projects spanning four continents: Africa, North America, Australia, and Asia. Using artificial intelligence, KoBold aims to create a “Google Maps” of the Earth’s crust, focusing on finding copper, cobalt, nickel, and lithium deposits.
It collects and analyzes multiple data streams — from old drilling results to satellite imagery — to better understand where new deposits might be found. Algorithms applied to the data collected determine the geological patterns that indicate a potential deposit of cobalt, which occurs naturally alongside nickel and copper.
KoBold said the technology can locate resources that may have eluded more traditional geologists and can help miners decide where to acquire land and drill.