Welcome to the 107th edition of Deep Tech Catalyst, the educational channel from The Scenarionist where science meets venture!
This week, we stay firmly in the mining and critical minerals universe, but flip the lens. Instead of asking how to build a mining tech company, we ask what makes one investable.
I sat down with Jun Qu, Principal at Main Sequence, to unpack how a Deep Tech investor looks at mining and critical minerals: where the real upside sits, which risks matter at each stage, and how non-dilutive capital and business model design change what’s possible.
Key takeaways from the episode:
🔌 Why Mining is Finally Venture-Backable
Structural demand from the energy transition and AI, looming supply gaps, more open incumbents, and new non-dilutive capital are turning parts of mining into genuinely VC-compatible markets.
⛏️ Where the Big Opportunities Sit in the Value Chain
Three areas stand out: exploration tech that finds better projects faster, processing and refining that make stranded resources economic, and operational tech that boosts output from existing mines.
💰 Business Models That Capture Value
From subscriptions and hardware-as-a-service to licensing, royalties, and tech-enabled operators, the core question is how much of the resource upside the technology provider chooses—and manages—to capture.
🧩 Cracking Adoption in a “First to Be Second” Industry
Industry insiders on the team, aligned strategic investors, and a focus on agile tier-two and tier-three operators create a realistic path from first pilots to credible references and, eventually, major miners.
📈 How Investors Assess Companies Across Stages
Pre-seed and seed are mostly about the team and showing the core technology works; Series A and beyond focus on unit economics, repeatable deployments, and scale, while the market is still maturing on growth capital and exit pathways in mining tech.
Deep Tech Startups & Venture Capital: An Analysis of 2025 | Chapter 3 - Act I
The annual report on the Deep Tech Cycle — 2025 in Themes: where value pools across semiconductors, quantum, and industrial materials.
