KoBold Metals (KoBold), a US company backed by Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, has raised US$537M in equity funding to boost critical materials exploration.

The funding round valued KoBold at US$2.96Bn. The company positions itself as more than a traditional developer, promoting its use of advanced exploration technology with artificial intelligence (AI) and novel hardware. KoBold has invested more than US$100Bn annually across 70+ projects on five continents.

While its AI and geoscience focus draws appeal, much of the confidence in KoBold comes from its plans to develop the giant Mingomba copper deposit in Zambia, where grades could be as high as 5% Cu.

According to the company, the quality of the ore body has the potential to make Mingomba the highest-grade Zambian discovery in over a century, although Project Blue is not aware of any publicly available evidence to verify this.

KoBold and its partner, government-owned ZCCM-IH, plan to produce at least 300ktpy Cu starting in the 2030s. With copper demand set to be underpinned by energy transition for years to come, a well-funded, government-backed, high-grade producer in an established mining jurisdiction such as Zambia has strong potential.

KoBold’s co-founder and chief executive, Kurt House, stated that around 40% of the new capital would be spent on developing existing mine projects, with Mingomba taking “the lion’s share of that”.