Earth AI

Cover Block

Field	Detail
Company	Earth AI
Tagline	AI-powered mineral exploration company that discovers, develops, and owns critical mineral projects.
Headquarters	San Mateo, United States
Founded	2017
Stage	Series B
Business Model	Other (Project Development & Sale)
Industry	Cleantech / Climatetech
Technology	AI / Machine Learning
Geography	North America (Operations in Australia)
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Solo Founder (Roman Teslyuk)
Funding Label	Series B
Total Disclosed Funding	~$40.98 million [CB Insights, 2026]

Links

• Website: https://www.earth-ai.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/earth-ai

What an Investor Needs First

Earth AI operates a vertically integrated, AI-powered mineral exploration business that identifies and develops critical mineral deposits [Latitude Media, Jan 2025]. Founded in 2017 by Roman Teslyuk, a geoscientist pursuing a doctorate at the University of Sydney, the company emerged from Y Combinator with a thesis that software could improve exploration outcomes [TechCrunch, 2019]. Its core wedge combines a proprietary Mineral Targeting Platform with owned drilling rigs to validate targets, creating a closed-loop discovery engine [Latitude Media, Jan 2025].

Teslyuk's eight years of mineral exploration and academic experience anchor the technical credibility of the operation [TechCrunch, 2019]. The business model involves discovering and proving deposits, then selling the validated assets to large mining companies, a path supported by a $20 million Series B led by Tamarack Global and Cantos Ventures, bringing cumulative funding to approximately $41 million [PR Newswire, Jan 2025] [CB Insights, 2026]. Over the coming 12-18 months, the critical watchpoints are the translation of its claimed 75% discovery success rate into commercial sales with named off-takers and the scaling of its Australian field operations beyond the six confirmed prospects [miningstockeducation.com, 2025].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core funding and founder details are well-sourced; key performance metrics are company-provided.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis	Value
Stage	Series B
Business Model	Other
Industry / Vertical	Cleantech / Climatetech
Technology Type	AI / Machine Learning
Geography	North America
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Solo Founder
Funding	~$40,980,000

Inside the Company

Earth AI is a San Mateo-based mineral exploration firm founded in 2017 by geoscientist Roman Teslyuk [TechCrunch, 2019]. The company's formation was driven by Teslyuk's academic and field experience, aiming to apply data science to the historically inefficient process of finding mineral deposits. Its early development was supported by Y Combinator, which the company joined in 2019 [TechCrunch, 2019].

Key operational milestones have centered on proving its technology in the field. The company has confirmed the discovery of six new mineralized prospects in Australia, containing tungsten, cobalt, and gold [miningstockeducation.com, 2025]. A significant inflection point was the January 2025 closing of an oversubscribed $20 million Series B round led by Tamarack Global and Cantos Ventures, bringing its total disclosed funding to approximately $40.98 million [PR Newswire, Jan 2025] [CB Insights, 2026]. While headquartered in the United States, its primary exploration activities are concentrated in New South Wales, Australia [Latitude Media, Jan 2025].

Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Founding details confirmed by TechCrunch and Y Combinator. Funding totals corroborated by PR Newswire and CB Insights. Operational claims cited from mining industry publications.

Under the Hood

The company's core proposition is a vertically integrated workflow that begins with AI-driven targeting and ends with physical proof of concept. Earth AI uses a proprietary Mineral Targeting Platform to analyze public geological data, identifying prospective deposits of critical minerals like tungsten, cobalt, and gold [Latitude Media, Jan 2025]. This software-based analysis is followed by deploying its own, proprietary mobile low-disturbance drilling rigs to test and develop the identified sites [mining-technology.com]. The business model is to own these validated mineral projects and sell them to large mining companies [Latitude Media, Jan 2025].

Performance claims center on improved discovery economics. The company states its technology has improved discovery success rates from an industry standard of 0.5% to 66% [earth-ai.com/technology, 2026]. External reports and investor communications cite a 75% discovery success rate while reducing exploration costs by up to 80% compared to traditional methods [LinkedIn, Ben Werdegar] [aimresearch.co]. The primary evidence for this performance is the confirmation of six new mineralized prospects in Australia [theaiinsider.tech, 2025].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Key performance metrics are company-sourced or cited by investors; the discovery of six prospects is corroborated by multiple outlets.

Market Research

The market for critical minerals is defined by the capital expenditure and strategic urgency of securing supply chains for the energy transition. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has projected that demand for minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper could grow by as much as 400% to 600% by 2040 under net-zero scenarios [TechCrunch, March 2025]. This demand is driven by the global build-out of electric vehicles, grid-scale battery storage, and renewable energy infrastructure.

Demand tailwinds are structural and policy-driven. National security concerns over concentrated supply have led to legislation like the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which includes incentives for domestically sourced or processed critical minerals [TechCrunch, March 2025]. Earth AI's wedge targets the exploration phase, a segment historically characterized by high capital intensity and low success rates.

Metric	Value
Industry Avg. Discovery Success	0.5%
Earth AI Claimed Discovery Success	75%
Earth AI Claimed Cost Reduction	80%

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Market context is supported by cited industry reports, but specific TAM for the company's niche is not publicly quantified.

Competition and Substitutes

Earth AI operates in a niche defined by the application of data science to mineral exploration. Traditional mineral exploration is dominated by large, integrated mining companies and junior exploration firms. Earth AI's wedge is to introduce a fundamentally different, software-driven discovery process that aims to be both cheaper and more accurate.

Adjacent competition comes from geoscience software and data providers, such as Seequent. These companies sell tools for geological modeling but typically stop at the software layer; they do not engage in physical drilling or claim ownership of discovered resources. Earth AI's vertical integration places it in a different business model category.

Where Earth AI appears to have a defensible edge today is in its proprietary dataset and integrated feedback loop. The company's Mineral Targeting Platform is trained on the results of its own drilling campaigns. This creates a closed-loop system where each drilled prospect improves the AI model. This edge is durable as long as Earth AI continues to execute drilling programs and retains exclusive rights to the resulting data.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitive mapping is inferred from industry structure and company positioning; no direct competitor profiles are publicly cited.

Opportunity

If Earth AI can scale its vertically integrated model, the prize is a fundamental reordering of the capital-intensive, high-risk business of discovering the critical minerals required for the energy transition. The company uses its proprietary Mineral Targeting Platform to identify high-probability targets and its own drilling capability to prove them, aiming to sell validated deposits to large miners [Latitude Media, Jan 2025]. The evidence of six confirmed new mineralized prospects in Australia demonstrates the model can produce tangible, saleable assets [miningstockeducation.com, 2025].

Scenario	What happens	Catalyst	Why it's plausible
Project Portfolio Scale	Earth AI systematically discovers and proves a pipeline of 50+ mineral prospects.	A first major asset sale to a named miner like BHP or Rio Tinto.	The company is already operating in mineral-rich Australia and has confirmed six prospects [Latitude Media, Jan 2025] [PR Newswire, Jan 2025].
Technology Licensing	The Mineral Targeting Platform is licensed to other junior explorers or mining majors.	Publication of a third-party, peer-reviewed study validating the AI platform's predictive accuracy.	The company's claimed discovery success rate of 75% is a powerful marketing tool [LinkedIn, Ben Werdegar].
Geographic Expansion	The integrated model is replicated in other geopolitically stable regions.	Securing a strategic investment or joint venture with a regional mining champion.	The model is geology-agnostic and driven by public data [TechCrunch, Mar 2025].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- The core opportunity thesis is built on company claims of technical efficacy and a confirmed operational footprint, but key commercial milestones remain uncorroborated by independent sources.

Sources

1. [Latitude Media, Jan 2025] Earth AI's play in the hunt for critical minerals | https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/25/earth-ais-algorithms-found-critical-minerals-in-places-everyone-else-ignored/
2. [TechCrunch, 2019] YC’s Earth AI closes funding for its platform to make mining less wasteful | https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/19/ycs-earth-ai-closes-funding-for-its-platform-to-making-mining-less-wasteful/?_guc_consent_skip=1601358226
3. [miningstockeducation.com, 2025] Confirmed six new tungsten, cobalt, and gold mineral prospects using predictive artificial intelligence technology | https://www.miningstockeducation.com/earth-ai/
4. [PR Newswire, Jan 2025] Earth AI Closes Oversubscribed Round; Raising $20M for AI Driven Mineral Exploration | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/earth-ai-closes-oversubscribed-round-raising-20m-for-ai-driven-mineral-exploration-302360289.html
5. [CB Insights, 2026] Earth AI profile | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/earth-ai
6. [Y Combinator] EARTH AI: Predictive Explorer and Driller for Critical Metal Deposits | https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/earth-ai
7. [mining-technology.com] Achieved a discovery success rate of 75% with its proprietary mobile low disturbance drilling technology | https://www.mining-technology.com/data-insights/earth-ai-uses-ai-to-find-critical-minerals/
8. [earth-ai.com/technology, 2026] Improved discovery success rates from 0.5% to 66% using its prediction tools | https://www.earth-ai.com/technology
9. [LinkedIn, Ben Werdegar] Achieved a monumental discovery success rate of 75% (versus an industry average of 0.5%) at 20% of the standard exploration cost | https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-werdegar/
10. [aimresearch.co] Achieved a discovery success rate of 75% compared to the industry average of 0.5%, while slashing exploration costs by up to 80% | https://aimresearch.co/earth-ai/
11. [theaiinsider.tech, 2025] Discovered six new mineralized prospects in Australia using AI-powered exploration | https://theaiinsider.tech/technology/earth-ai-uses-ai-to-find-critical-minerals/
12. [LinkedIn, 2026] Job postings for IT Support Engineer and Software Engineer | https://www.linkedin.com/company/earth-ai/jobs/
13. [TechCrunch, Mar 2025] Earth AI's play in the hunt for critical minerals | https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/25/earth-ais-algorithms-found-critical-minerals-in-places-everyone-else-ignored/