GeologicAI digs in

TECH

GeologicAI lands $60.5M to fuel critical minerals push

What happened: Calgary-based GeologicAI closed $60.5 million CAD in Series B funding to scale its critical mineral exploration tech as demand ramps up. Blue Earth Capital led the round with backing from Breakthrough Energy Ventures and mining giants BHP Ventures and Rio Tinto.

How it works: GeologicAI’s solution helps miners identify what’s underground and whether the deposits are commercially viable. The system scans rock and core samples using high-res imaging, hyperspectral data and X-ray fluorescence to generate detailed data, replacing manual exploration and logging.

The result: faster decisions, more accurate targeting, and a smaller environmental footprint.

Why it matters: Critical minerals like lithium, copper and rare earths are essential for the energy transition, and demand is only growing as tech giants race to build out data centres and compute power for AI.

But finding and validating deposits remains slow, expensive, and often environmentally disruptive. Tools like GeologicAI can help reduce that risk, minimize disruption for local communities, and accelerate development timelines.

Despite the recent cooling off in funding for Canadian climate tech, the raise shows there’s still investor appetite for technologies enabling the energy transition.

What’s next: With this fresh capital, GeologicAI plans to scale globally, ramping up hiring and expanding into more mining jurisdictions. While the long-term trend for data centres isn’t a sure thing, GeologicAI isn’t betting on a single industry, but plugging into a larger, durable shift in how the energy system.

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IN THE FIELD

🌱 Miraterra (Vancouver, BC) acquired soil DNA startup Trace Genomics to enhance its soil measurement platform. Miraterra enables farmers to make better crop decisions based on the make up of their soil, with Trace’s DNA approach adding deeper insights.

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ECOSYSTEM VIEW

Climate Funding Recap: Growth rounds anchor $440M in a cautious market

We just published our latest funding recap, looking at where climate VC dollars are flowing in Canada. In a year shaped by tariffs, geopolitical conflict, and a shifting policy landscape, Canadian startups closed $440M across 28 rounds - a 31% drop vs last year. But the full picture is a bit more nuanced:

• Growth-stage companies secured significant capital to scale up

• Early stage bets are still getting placed, but the Series A gap is getting bigger

• Energy and critical minerals dominated

Check out our full recap for all the details 👇️ 

NEWS

📡 Signals & Currents

⛈️ Grid at risk - Canada’s grid isn’t ready for more frequent extreme weather. Climate change, increasing demand, and more extreme weather mean most provinces could lose power during extreme weather. Utilities across Canada will need to upgrade and transition to more fault-tolerant systems. [CTV]

🌲 Measuring Canada’s hidden peatland emissions - Canada’s peatlands are critical carbon sinks that are increasingly becoming net emitters due to wildfires and climate change. But a lack of models means the impact is hidden from official emissions tallies. [CBC]

🌊 Google signs hydropower deal with Brookfield - Google secured 3 GW of hydropower for data centre energy in a $3 billion deal, the largest corporate clean power deal for hydro as tech giants look for clean baseload power to balance decarbonization with rapid expansion. [G&M]

⛔️ UK ditches Green Taxonomy - The UK won’t go ahead with the taxonomy, citing feedback that other policies are a higher priority in accelerating green investment and limiting greenwashing. [ESG Today]

🧯 Feds invest in wildfire innovation - A new Wildfire Resilience Consortium of Canada will act as a centre of excellence for wildfire innovation and knowledge exchange as the frequency and severity of fires in Canada increases. [GoC]

🤖 Uber goes all in on electric robotaxis - The ridehailing giant will make a multi-hundred-million dollar investment in EV maker Lucid Motors and self-driving car startup Nuro to deploy 20,000 electric robotaxis in the US. [The Verge]

⚡️ 1 in 3 data centres could unplug from the grid - 27% of data centres will run entirely on on-site power by 2030 according to a new industry survey as hyperscalers struggle to access enough power from the grid. [Latitude]

💶 EU taps pension funds for grid upgrades - The EU wants to partner with major pension funds to upgrade power grids necessary for electrification and more ambitious climate targets. Canada has also called on its pension funds to invest more at home. [Energy Connects]

COMMUNITY

🚀 Scale Ready: Build, Elevate & Grow: Spring Capital is hosting this cohort-based program to build early-stage founders’ investment readiness.

➡️ Discover more funding opportunities.

🗓️ Rare Earth Mines, Magnets and Motors: The two-day conference will bring together major participants from across the mine-to-OEM supply chain. Toronto, September 23-24th.

➡️ Discover more climate events.

🧑🏻‍💻 Jetson is hiring a Director of Marketing to accelerate the transition of 100M homes across North America away from burning fossil fuels to sustainable energy use.

➡️ Find more open roles.