SOSV NY portfolio company Giraffe Bio recently announced in TechCrunch a $6.4M Seed led by Orion Industrial Ventures, with participation from BHP Ventures, Twynam, Air Capital, and Baruch Future Ventures to bring their reagents for copper mining out of the lab.
Between the AI data center boom and economy-wide electrification, the world will need a lot more copper. But meeting rising demand will require miners to recover more metal from lower-grade and more complex ores.
Giraffe Bio is taking a new approach by applying a drug-discovery playbook to mining, combining AI-enabled molecular design, cell-free biology and testing on real ore samples to engineer biochemical promoters for copper flotation. Tailored to specific minerals and ore conditions, these reagents are designed to help mines help mines recover up to 5% more copper and other valuable minerals while producing cleaner concentrates.
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