How can we find better ways to reduce the impact of mining?
How can we find better ways to reduce the impact of mining?
June 23rd 2025 / 8 min read
The mining industry plays an essential role in accelerating the energy transition, decarbonisation and global economic development—providing the raw materials that power renewables, electrification and infrastructure.
The world’s demand for critical materials—copper for renewables, lithium for batteries, iron ore for steel—has never been higher. But so too is the need to responsibly deliver these materials in a way that minimises impact on the environment, protects cultural heritage and supports local communities.
We believe innovation is the key to resolving this challenge. It’s why we launched our mining tech accelerator program in 2024, to partner with startups developing breakthrough technologies in a wide range of areas related to the mining industry (find out more here).
Now, we’re launching a new challenge focused entirely on Reduced Impact Mining – with five priority areas where innovation could drive meaningful change in reducing the impact of mining.
Interested in receiving more insights like this ? Subscribe to our newsletter and join 20,000+ founders, investors, and innovators
Subscribe hereHeritage identification
Across the world, mining often takes place on land that holds deep cultural significance. Understanding and protecting these cultural features from the earliest stages of development is crucial.
We are looking for startups developing cutting-edge technologies that can help identify and protect culturally significant sites and preserve heritage – in partnership with Traditional Owners and local communities.
Examples of what we’re funding:
Remote sensing and computer vision to better identify and protect cultural sites
Solutions to map, protect and share cultural features and knowledge
Environment & biodiversity monitoring
Mining operations interact with complex ecosystems - from native vegetation and wildlife habitats to watersheds and soil systems.
Today's environmental data collection is often fragmented across multiple systems, relying on manual processes and periodic sampling that can miss critical changes. This limits operators' ability to make informed decisions in real-time to proactively engage with the land.
Examples of what we’re funding:
Technologies (remote sensing, computer vision, drones) for proactive environmental and biodiversity monitoring
Technologies to track and manage local wildlife and vegetation
Mine closure & rehabilitation
With hundreds of mine sites entering closure phases over the next few decades, the scale of land requiring rehabilitation is unprecedented.
As temporary stewards of the land, we partner with our stakeholders, including host communities, to develop a shared vision of the lands once mining activities have completed.
We are looking for innovative solutions to improve the speed and impact of activities to successfully rehabilitate the land to a sustainable state.
Examples of what we’re funding:
Automated revegetation systems for end-to-end native species restoration
Advanced soil remediation technologies and land management solutions
Remote monitoring and sensing solutions to manage and track progress
Water management
Managing water resources at industrial scale at Rio Tinto’s operations in Western Australia and other operations is not just critical to sustainable iron ore production and enabling better solutions for tailings, but to the long-term ecological balance.
Examples of what we’re funding:
Dry ore separation technologies to reduce water usage in ore processing
Predictive water management systems to optimise and reduce consumption
Solutions for aquifer protection and management
[Read more of our thoughts on Rethinking Wastewater]
Mining & remote operations
Evolving traditional large-scale mining operations more towards remote working and operations can significantly reduce the industry’s footprint and therefore disturbance and overall impact on the land and the surrounding ecology.
Examples of what we’re funding:
Next-gen autonomy within mining operations and supporting infrastructure
Robotics and AI-driven decision-making systems
Remote monitoring and sensing to enable, manage and track the above
What our program offers
Investment: We provide capital, but also access to networks and partnerships
Expertise: We bring decades of operational knowledge and helps startups understand what works in practice
Scale: Our operations are huge and demonstrating success at an early scale can help accelerate opportunities globally
Access: Success in mining opens doors to other heavy industries facing similar challenges
If you’re a startup ready to take on some of the industry’s most pressing challenges — we want to hear from you. Applications are now open for our next cohort, starting in August 2025.
Apply hereNews from the Factory Floor
trends
How can we find better ways to reduce the impact of mining?
Rio Tinto and Founders Factory have launched a new challenge for our Accelerator to transform mining operations in Western Australia – and are calling on startups to join
founder stories
Endolith’s Liz Dennett: On transforming mining through bio-intelligence
From a pub-based brainstorm to working with the world’s largest mining company, Endolith founder Liz Dennett shares her journey so far
founder stories
Xapien’s Dan Secretan: On building transformative vertical AI
Dan Secretan, founder of Xapien, shares the story behind one of the UK’s most promising AI startups—and their plans to transform background research