Prelude Ventures invests in and supports early-stage startups with the greatest potential to mitigate climate change. Our goal is to help build the next generation of category-defining businesses.

Prelude Ventures

Chrysalix is an early-stage industrial innovation venture capital firm that connects market-driven problems to breakthrough solutions. It invests in and supports compelling technologies and entrepreneurial management teams that address the changing demands of the global industry and actively work with their clients and support them with deep industry and technical knowledge, management and board assistance, organized networking with industrial and financial partners, management of intellectual property, and direct access to capital. In 2001, Wal van Lierop established the firm in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Chrysalix Venture Capital

Cycle Capital is a pioneer in Canadian Cleantech venture capital fund management investing in companies at the development and commercialization stages in North America. Founded in 2009 by Andrée-Lise Méthot, Founder and Managing Partner, Cycle Capital’s Platform has become an important venture capital investor of the Cleantech industry with its 3 funds totaling $230M Assets Under Management (AUM). Cycle Capital is looking to invests in promising ventures that are not capital intensive and/or that can benefit from the leverage brought by Cycle Capital extensive network of investors, strategic partners and advisors.  In addition to its core investments, Cycle Capital targets companies with high growth potential – especially those with strong intellectual property, leading edge technologies and with exceptional management talent that would benefit from the firm’s network of strategic industrial partners and expert advisors. With its core investment and business expertise, Cycle Capital plays an active role adding meaningful and tangible value to its portfolio companies at all stages of their life.

Cycle Capital

Export Development Canada (EDC) is a Crown corporation dedicated to assisting Canadian businesses of all sizes in achieving global success. It provides them with the tools they need to grow their business with confidence, including trade knowledge, financial solutions, equity, insurance, and connections.

Export Development Canada

Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) is a global integrated business enterprise that develops and operates businesses across virtually every industry including industrial finance, energy, metals, machinery, chemicals, living essentials, and environmental business. MC's current activities are expanding far beyond its traditional trading operations as its diverse business ranges from natural resources development to investment in retail business, infrastructure, financial products and manufacturing of industrial goods.

Mitsubishi Corporation

Aurus is a Chilean investment firm that manages funds in the venture capital, real estate, and capital markets. We are pioneers in Latin America’s Venture Capital industry, dedicated to developing the ecosystem and investing in the region’s most impressive talent, and scalable technologies. We believe that Chile is the best platform in which to invest in our region because of its investment friendly policies, commitment to innovation, and industry leadership. As local investors, we realize where the biggest transformations are occurring. We add value to our portfolio companies through experience, insights, best practices, and network. Our investment decisions are aided by the advice of outstanding advisory committees for each of the funds. All of them are also LPs in the fund and a valuable resource to Aurus and our investees, both in evaluating a prospective investment and later adding value to them through our mentoring program.

Aurus

Caterpillar Ventures not only invests capital, but they want to put big ideas to work. Together, they want to build today for a better tomorrow.     Caterpillar Ventures makes strategic, minority interest investments in early–round ventures with investments of $0.5 million to $5.0 million to help founders around the world grow and scale their businesses   Caterpillar Ventures wants to help you grow. They have deep industry insights developed from generations of collaborating and investing with their customers, dealers, and suppliers. They are one of the world’s most valuable brands with a strong global dealer and supplier network, technology resources, and a commitment making sustainable progress possible around the world.  Consider their global presence. In 2014, Caterpillar had 114,233 employees around the globe and $55.2 billion in sales and revenues and with 177 independently owned Cat dealerships including their own 161,700 employees, they have the world covered. Caterpillar invests more than $2 billion each year in research and development and holds more than 15,000 pending and granted patents worldwide. With their global presence and ongoing investments in innovation, they support and continue to supply a field population of more than 3 million machines and engines, the largest population of connected machines and engines within the industries they serve.

Caterpillar Ventures

ABB Technology Ventures (ATV) is the strategic venture capital unit of ABB (NYSE: ABB). ATV scouts the globe for breakthrough power and automation technology partners aligned with ABB’s goal to write the future of industrial digitalization. Since its formation in 2009, ATV has invested nearly $200 million into high potential technology companies spanning a range of sectors including robotics, industrial IoT, machine learning, 3D printing, cybersecurity and distributed energy. Learn more at abb.com/ventures.

ABB Technology Ventures

Caterpillar Inc., is an American corporation which designs, manufactures, markets and sells machinery and engines and sells financial products and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network. Caterpillar is the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives. With more than US$89 billion in assets, Caterpillar was ranked number one in its industry and number 44 overall in the 2009 Fortune 500.  Caterpillar stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Caterpillar Inc. traces its origins to the 1925 merger of the Holt Manufacturing Company and the C. L. Best Tractor Company, creating a new entity, the California based Caterpillar Tractor Company. In 1986, the company re-organized itself as a Delaware corporation under the current name, Caterpillar Inc. Caterpillar's headquarters are located in Peoria, Illinois, United States.  Caterpillar machinery is recognizable by its trademark ''Caterpillar Yellow'' livery and the ''CAT'' logo.

Caterpillar

J.P. Morgan Asset Management is an asset manager for individuals, advisors, and institutions. Their investment professionals are located around the world, providing strategies that span the full spectrum of asset classes. As one of the largest asset and wealth managers in the world, with assets under management of $1.7 trillion (as of December 31, 2014), they provide global market insights and a range of investment capabilities that few other firms can match.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management

BDC Venture Capital is a major venture capital investor in Canada, active at every stage of the company's development cycle, from seed through expansion, with a focus on technology-based businesses that have high growth potential and that are positioned to become dominant players in their markets. The company helps create and develop strong Canadian businesses through financing, consulting services and securitization, with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises. BDC Venture Capital has been involved in venture capital since 1975 and has to date invested in more than 400 companies involved in the areas of Life Sciences, Telecommunications, Information Technology and Advanced Technologies.

BDC Venture Capital

Evok Innovations is a clean technology & energy transition fund leveraging the strengths of a world-class team of technologists, company builders, and climate investors.

Evok Innovations

MineSense Technologies

MineSense Technologies is a developer of a data analytics platform intended to monitor and improve the productivity and recovery of mines. The company's platform provides businesses with real-time, sensor-based sorting of low-grade ore to a level of sensitivity and to identify differences in mineralogy, enabling the mining industry to sort ores easily and enhance mineral planning. MineSense Technologies was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.

MineSense Technologies Ltd. is a Vancouver-based company that develops smart technologies for the metallic mining industry. The company's flagship products, ShovelSense and BeltSense, provide real-time, sensor-based ore sorting solutions for mines. ShovelSense is a sensor installed on mining equipment that scans and estimates the grade of material in every shovel and bucket, while BeltSense is used on conveyance at different points of the mine's downstream operations. These technologies enable mine operators to make real-time decisions early in the mining process, routing ore to the mill for valuable mineral extraction or to the waste pile.

Focused Mining Tech Startup MineSense

MineSense Technologies raises $42 million in JP Morgan-led Series E round

MineSense Technologies launches data platform to aid mine

Minesense Technologies - Member Directory

MineSense: Unearthing smarter mining practices with tech

J.P. Morgan leads US$42 million MineSense funding

MineSense Technologies launches MineSense Data Portal

Augmenting the mining value chain with technology and automation

Mining Tech

MineSense

MineSense Technologies Ltd. is a Vancouver-based company that develops smart technologies for the metallic mining industry. The company's flagship products, ShovelSense and BeltSense, provide real-time, sensor-based ore sorting solutions for mines. ShovelSense is a sensor installed on mining equipment that scans and estimates the grade of material in every shovel and bucket, while BeltSense is used on conveyance at different points of the mine's downstream operations. These technologies enable mine operators to make real-time decisions early in the mining process, routing ore to the mill for valuable mineral extraction or to the waste pile.
MineSense's solutions aim to improve ore grade control, operational profitability, and carbon intensity across the metals mining industry. The company's technology allows mining companies to see the value of material as it is being mined, bucket by bucket, addressing challenges such as depletion of high-quality metal resources and increasing political and environmental barriers. By more accurately sorting ore from waste, MineSense's technologies decrease environmental impacts through reduced greenhouse gas emissions, water and energy consumption per unit of metal recovered, and enable mines to optimize the use of resources.
Initially focused on copper mining, MineSense has expanded its capabilities to other base metals and is developing methods to predict non-metal material characteristics, such as ore hardness. The company's technology can increase metal recovery materially, with production from operating mines increasing by 5% to 25% on existing infrastructure. In December 2023, MineSense launched the MineSense Data Portal, a platform that leverages real-time data from ShovelSense and BeltSense to provide mining operators with data-driven insights for mine-to-mill optimization.

Oxbotica (also known as Oxa) is a British autonomous vehicle software developer founded in 2014 by Oxford professors Paul Newman and Ingmar Posner. The company has developed a suite of autonomous vehicle software products, including Oxbotica Driver, Oxbotica Cloud, and Oxbotica MetaDriver. Oxbotica's Universal Autonomy technology aims to enable any vehicle, regardless of size or location, to operate autonomously, safely, and sustainably. The company's software can be applied to various industries and use cases, including mining, energy, goods delivery, shared passenger transportation, agriculture, and airports.Oxbotica's technology integrates a range of autonomous vehicle functionalities, such as device drivers, mapping, obstacle detection, sensor perception, and prediction. The company's MetaDriver tool utilizes artificial intelligence in the metaverse to generate simulated scenarios for testing autonomous vehicle operations without physical driving. In May 2022, Oxbotica achieved a significant milestone by conducting Europe's first zero-occupancy trial of a fully autonomous electric vehicle on publicly accessible roads in Oxford.The company has established partnerships with various organizations to accelerate the adoption of autonomous driving solutions. For instance, Oxbotica is collaborating with ZF to develop self-driving passenger shuttles for airports, and with BP to automate vehicles for wind and solar farms. The company has also worked with Ocado Group to streamline goods delivery processes using autonomous vehicles.Key customers and partnershipsOxbotica has formed strategic partnerships with several companies across different sectors. The company is working with BP to develop autonomous vehicles for use in energy applications, particularly in wind and solar farms. Ocado Group, a leading online grocery technology company, has partnered with Oxbotica to explore autonomous delivery solutions.In the mining sector, Oxbotica is advancing an "open autonomy" mining solution in Canada in collaboration with Wenco International Mining Systems. The company has also partnered with AppliedEV to conduct autonomous vehicle trials.Oxbotica has established a collaboration with Google Cloud to accelerate the deployment of its autonomous software platform globally. This partnership aims to combine Google Cloud's expertise in cloud infrastructure with Oxbotica's autonomous vehicle software to create scalable, safe, and reliable autonomous driving solutions for businesses with transportation in their value chain.

Uptake is a leader in predictive analytics software-as-a-service (SaaS) for the industrial sector, focusing on translating data into smarter operations. The company's flagship product, Uptake Fleet, is a comprehensive predictive maintenance solution for the transportation industry. Uptake Fleet leverages advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) to predict vehicle failures, optimize maintenance strategies, and improve overall fleet performance.
Uptake Fleet's capabilities include Work Order Analytics, which enables users to predict vehicle failures down to the component level using existing internal work order data. The platform provides component-level survival curves, aggregate and individual unit component analytics, and allows users to set thresholds for specific vehicle components to create alerts and influence risk scores. Uptake Fleet also supports various sensor analytics endpoints, including outputs from the Geotab Electrical System Rating (ESR) module, to generate insights on the health of critical system components.
The company's technology has demonstrated significant benefits for its users, including a 30-day lead time in detecting leaks compared to traditional manual inspections, an 83% reduction in significant tire failures, a 5% improvement in fuel economy, and a 91% improvement in safe tire driving days. Uptake's solutions have been recognized by industry analysts and publications, including Gartner, Verdantix, the World Economic Forum, CNBC, and Forbes.
Key customers and partnerships
Uptake has established partnerships with several industry leaders to expand its reach and capabilities. In July 2023, the company partnered with Platform Science, a connected vehicle platform, to extend data-driven insights and predictive maintenance capabilities to some of the country's largest vehicle fleets. This collaboration allows Platform Science users to access Uptake Fleet through the Virtual Vehicle platform.
In February 2023, Uptake entered into a commercial agreement with Daimler Truck North America (DTNA), enabling the use of innovative data-as-a-service (DaaS) technology to power Uptake Fleet. This partnership allows DTNA customers to leverage Uptake's data-driven insights to help reduce unplanned fleet downtime and maintenance costs.
Uptake's customer base includes prominent organizations such as United Road, a leader in heavy-haul transportation services in North America, which deployed Uptake Fleet across its fleet to cut maintenance costs and increase driver mileage. The company has also worked with Caterpillar and Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiaries, demonstrating its ability to serve diverse industries and large-scale operations.

Uptake

KoBold Metals is a California-based artificial intelligence-powered mineral exploration company founded in 2018. The company utilizes AI, machine learning, and cloud computing techniques to assess the composition of the subsurface and identify potential mineral deposits, particularly focusing on critical materials needed for electric vehicle batteries and clean energy technologies. KoBold's primary focus is on discovering and developing deposits of metals such as copper, cobalt, lithium, and nickel.
At the core of KoBold's technology is TerraShed, a data platform that aggregates and structures large scientific data collections, making them quickly available for analysis. The company employs various proprietary modules and machine learning models to guide decisions throughout the exploration process. KoBold's approach combines AI systems with geoscience expertise to determine what information will best reduce uncertainty in finding minable ore deposits.
In July 2024, KoBold announced a significant copper discovery in Zambia, estimated to be the largest in over a decade. The company's Mingomba project is expected to produce at least 300,000 tons of copper annually once fully operational, with an estimated value of billions of dollars per year for decades. The deposit boasts copper ore grades of more than 5%, significantly higher than the industry average of around 0.6%.
KoBold's exploration methods have shown promising results. During a 2022 field season in northern Quebec, the company's AI-guided approach led to hitting nickel-sulfide mineralization in eight out of 10 drill holes, a success rate approximately 10 times better than the industry average for similarly isolated drill holes. The company currently has more than 60 exploration-stage projects across several countries.

KoBold Metals

SafeAI is a Santa Clara, California-based company that develops autonomous solutions for heavy equipment in the construction and mining industries. Founded in 2017 by Bibhrajit Halder, SafeAI specializes in retrofitting existing vehicles with autonomous technology, regardless of manufacturer or vehicle type. The company's core product is an OEM-agnostic retrofit kit that includes hardware and proprietary autonomy software, enabling equipment owners to convert their existing fleets into self-operating robotic assets. SafeAI's autonomous platform utilizes advanced multimodal sensors, including LiDAR, radar, and cameras, along with onboard processing power to enable real-time decision-making.
In December 2023, SafeAI and Japanese construction company Obayashi unveiled what they claim is the world's first haul truck retrofitted to be both autonomous and electric. The companies converted a Caterpillar 725 articulated dump truck, demonstrating the potential for combining autonomy and electrification in heavy industry. SafeAI's technology aims to improve safety, productivity, and environmental performance on work sites. The company estimates that autonomy alone can boost environmental performance by up to 13%, while swapping diesel for electricity can cut net lifecycle emissions by over 60%.
SafeAI has also developed the SafeAI Autonomous Framework (SAF), which it describes as the first operating system purpose-built for heavy industry. In August 2023, SAF achieved ASIL D certification, the highest safety integrity level in the industry. This certification reinforces SafeAI's commitment to safety and validates its efforts to create a highly reliable operating system for heavy industry applications.

SafeAI

Hardware and software solutions that use technology such as AI/ML, LiDAR, and computer vision to discover sites with mining prospects

Solutions that use data from IoT sensors, site logs, and other data points to provide insights, simulations, and 3D representations of a mining site that can be used to visualize environments and create geological models

Solutions that use AI/ML, geospatial imagery, and even novel approaches such as vibration analysis to provide insights, support predictive maintenance, and help optimize worker productivity, fleet utilization, and other site resources, such as raw material inventory

Solutions to retrofit site vehicles with autonomous hardware and other autonomous and remote-controlled tools that support workflows, such as underground mapping and remote data capture

Providers of devices such as sensors to monitor real-time location and other environmental variables in an underground environment

Leverages robotics technology to automate certain vehicles and machinery to support mining activities

Leverages AI/ML to capture data from various sites and monitor data and information feeds

Autonomous machinery and equipment for underground mines and dark and constricted spaces

MineSense

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