Last Updated: 7 May 2026
Lithosquare, a Paris-based startup that uses AI and geological science to find mineral deposits faster, has raised $25 million in new funding. The company was co-founded in 2024 by Aymeric Préveral-Etcheverry, a mining engineer, and Simon Leclair, who joined as Founding COO. Both spent years working in mineral exploration before deciding the process needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.
The funding comes at a time when demand for metals like copper, lithium, and nickel is growing faster than the industry can supply them. Lithosquare projects the annual supply gap for critical metals could reach $350bn by 2040. Lithium demand alone is expected to grow by more than 400% over that period, driven by electric vehicles and grid storage. Recycling will help, but not nearly enough. More than 1,000 new mineral deposits will need to be found before 2040, and at current rates, that is not happening.
The round was co-led by World Fund and Kindred Capital, with participation from Daphni, Omnes Capital, and Ovni Capital.
The core problem is time. Getting from an initial exploration idea to a confirmed deposit discovery typically takes 7 to 15 years. A large part of that delay is not geological complexity but administrative friction: geologists spend roughly 80% of their time processing and organising data rather than doing the interpretive work that actually leads to discoveries. That is where Lithosquare sees the opening.
Geography adds another layer of difficulty. China controls roughly 50% of global rare earth extraction, which puts Western governments and manufacturers in a vulnerable position. Several governments have responded with policy. The EU Critical Raw Materials Act requires that more than 10% of annual mineral consumption be extracted domestically. Canada has its own Critical Minerals Strategy with comparable goals. Both policies are creating real demand for faster, more locally grounded exploration capacity.
"The energy transition depends on faster and more efficient discovery of critical raw materials. Lithosquare is not solving a niche geology problem: it's removing a supply constraint that affects every sector of the economy, from EV manufacturing to AI data centres."
Dr Nadine Geiser, Principal at World Fund
The new capital will go toward hiring, platform development, and global expansion. Lithosquare already works with mining companies across the US, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. The funding is intended to let the company move faster across all of those markets. New hires will span geologists, AI scientists, and data specialists.
On the product side, the focus is on deepening the science rather than broadening the feature set. The aim is sharper deposit targeting, which reduces the amount of unnecessary drilling and cuts the environmental costs that come with it. For a sector facing increasing scrutiny over its environmental footprint, that matters.
"Aymeric and the team have an abundance of all that. Relentless drive to innovate and bring step change into an industry that has such high demand on a global scale. The speed with which they're executing, their innovation, their results oriented approach and their optimistic attitude is something that made us want to jump on the journey with them."
Chrys Chrysanthou, General Partner at Kindred Capital
Founded in Paris in 2024 by mining engineers, geologists, and entrepreneurs, Lithosquare has built a platform that automates much of the exploration workflow. Most AI tools applied to geology work by recognising patterns in historical data. Lithosquare's approach is different: the platform is built around models of how mineral deposits actually form underground, which allows it to make more informed predictions about where to look and whether a target is worth drilling.
The platform is designed to assist geologists, not work around them. It takes over the data-heavy processing tasks so that expert geologists can spend more time on interpretation and fieldwork. The company reports up to a 10x improvement in exploration efficiency, with analysis timelines reduced from months to days.
"We spent years working in mineral exploration and watched the same bottleneck slow every project: too much time processing data, not enough time on actual geology and fieldwork. Lithosquare turbocharges geologists and exploration teams by bringing together deep geological science and AI to fundamentally rethink how mineral deposits are discovered."
Aymeric Préveral-Etcheverry, Co-founder and CEO of Lithosquare
The $25 million round was co-led by World Fund and Kindred Capital. World Fund is a European venture capital firm that backs climate technology companies from seed to Series B stage, with a focus on businesses that can reduce CO2 emissions at scale. Kindred Capital is an early-stage investor founded in 2015 that backs deeptech founders across Europe, with a portfolio spanning AI, life sciences, robotics, and compute infrastructure. The firm operates what it calls an equitable venture model, sharing fund carry with every founder it invests in.
Daphni, Omnes Capital, and Ovni Capital also participated in the round. Daphni is a Paris-based venture capital firm investing in technology startups across Europe. Omnes Capital is a European private equity firm with over €6.7 billion in assets under management, focused on the energy transition across renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure. Ovni Capital is an early-stage, first-check venture capital firm operating across Paris and San Francisco.
