MineMind, the Brazilian startup that develops artificial intelligence agents for geologists and mining engineers, raised US$1 million in a round that valued it at US$11 million.
The capital was provided by angels with experience in the main technology and mining operation companies: Edson Ribeiro, with more than 30 years at Vale in mineral exploration and resource and reserve management; Nick Fogarty, who joined ARANZ Geo in 2013; and Francisco Bittencourt and Mauro Sérvulo Delgado Santos, who went through Deswik and Fast2Mine, acquired by Sandvik and Weir respectively. Mauro Santos, in addition to being an investor, is vice president of mining planning at MineMind and is a member of its board of directors.
MineMind’s platform connects to the programs miners already use, rather than replacing them, and receives requests in natural language. Geologists and engineers can request data analysis, file organization, or execution of technical process steps, and different AI agents perform those tasks within existing software.
According to the company, some tasks that normally take four or five weeks can be completed in hours or days, with the final decision in the hands of professionals.
In one documented case, MineMind cataloged hundreds of files and reconstructed in three days the 11 stages of the process behind a geostatistical model whose author no longer worked at the mining company, a job that with traditional methods would have taken weeks.
AI agents that speak the language of mining
MineMind was founded by Gustavo Usero (CEO), Danyel Usero (CTO) and Luigi Carboni (CRO). The company began providing consulting services to companies in the sector and today combines these services with the sale of its software, which charges per user at a reference price of about US$2,000 per month.
It invoices close to US$400,000 and aims to reach around US$2 million by June 2027, half in subscriptions and half in services. It is incorporated in Delaware to facilitate rounds abroad, although most of the team works in Brazil.
“Mining is a market that relies heavily on trust. We could have just looked for capital, but we wanted people who deeply understood the industry and the problems we are trying to solve,” said Gustavo Usero.
With the funds, MineMind will develop its platform and expand its offering towards mine planning, a segment that adds to the initial focus on geology. The company plans a Series A of between US$10 million and US$20 million in about 12 months.
A market that is digitizing at an accelerated pace
MineMind’s commitment comes at a time when large mining companies are accelerating their digital transformation. In August, Vale and ABB announced a partnership to expand automation, AI and data integration across their operations in Brazil, following a pilot project at the Conceição II mine that the companies say increased productivity by 25%.
For MineMind, having investors from Vale, Seequent and Deswik is not just capital: it is direct access to the geology and engineering teams of the companies that make software purchasing decisions in the industry. The test will be to convert this support into recurring adoption by mining companies, beyond specific consulting projects.
