Metal refining in minutes, not months.
FL/CA/TX
Joined February 2020
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Determinant refines gold, copper, and critical metals for defense and energy.
The Last American Refinery 🇺🇸
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
People of venture capital, startup investors, and founders:
I’m assembling the @AvengersVC community for two gatherings next week in the Bay Area, who should get an invite?
Comment below with what you’re building to Avenge our Future for Good!
•Palo Alto, Wednesday Oct 28th from 4-6p
•San Francisco, Thursday Oct 29th from 6-8p
Since 2021, we’ve backed 25 early-stage startups. Over drinks in a semi-private lounge, we’ll talk:
•Portfolio updates: what’s scaling, what’s working, and what’s next
•Our evolving thesis: where we see the best entry points as the market shifts
•Direct access to the builders and investors driving the climate economy
Fresh from the portfolio:
•Optivolt: Just raised a $32M Series A to put intelligence inside the solar panel itself, with 20,000+ panels already shipped.
•Terraform Industries: Now selling >99% pure synthetic methane across California, made from air and sunlight, and producing methanol and hydrogen at its Muroc test site.
•Dexmat: Cut Galvorn pricing roughly in half, with third-party TE Connectivity testing showing up to 6.2x more current per gram than copper.
•Determinant Materials: Microfactory 1 is live with American metal refining that runs in minutes, not months, at roughly half the cost. Critical metals demand skyrocketing in the AI boom.
•Solarcore: Aerogel insulation that now protects EV batteries and has made it into red dot–winning boots.
•St3ms: Banana-waste yarn now spinning at industrial speeds, with yarns out to customers in Asia, Central America, and the US.
Schedule
First hour: meet and greet
Second hour: Climate Avengers VC investing thesis updates
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
PSA:
Lab grown diamonds don’t require nuclear fusion
But hey we make gold (and other stuff using radically less energy not radically more
@DetermMaterials
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
If you want to reindustrialize, you need mineral refining capacity.
Check out what @DetermMaterials / @nrg91720 is up to! (link to our podcast in the comment)
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
AI is triggering a trillion-dollar physical infrastructure cycle.
Every dollar of compute eventually becomes demand for physical infrastructure.
The industry is racing to solve power, land, and cooling.
The next constraint is refined metals.
@DetermMaterials
If you want to reindustrialize, you need mineral refining capacity.
Check out what @DetermMaterials / @nrg91720 is up to! (link to our podcast in the comment)
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
AI is triggering a trillion-dollar physical infrastructure cycle
Every dollar of compute eventually becomes demand for refined metals
Excited to work with @RioTinto & @foundersfactory on this challenge/opportunity and have them as investors in @DetermMaterials
Introducing the fifth cohort of the Founders Factory & Rio Tinto Mining Tech Accelerator.
A new mining industry is emerging where critical materials are discovered, produced and processed using frontier technologies beyond the mine site such as AI, quantum computing and deep science.
From over 500 applications, we're thrilled to welcome five exceptional ventures into the programme, taking our global mining portfolio to 29 startups:
⛏️ Cascade Geomatics (US): Geohazard monitoring for resources industries and infrastructure | Founders: Braden Kislin | Nafizur Rahman | cascadegeomatics.com
🧬 Fieldstone (US): Harnessing biology for rapid metal measurements | Founders: Patrick Stone | Brandon Fields | fieldstone.bio
⚗️ Determinant Materials (US): Rapid, microparticle refining of critical metals at the point of origin | Founders: Nikhil R. Gupta | determinantmaterials.com
📊 blueprint powered by Imvelo (Australia): The economic decision platform for mining | Founders: Alan Bye | Sharna Glover | blueprintmining.ai
🔍 NanduX (US & Chile): Copper exploration with deep sensing | Founders: Miguel Arratia | Sebastian Tapia | nandux.net
As critical minerals and raw materials become increasingly central to global resilience, AI advancement and electrification, our portfolio continues to deliver real commercial results. Two thirds of our startups have trialled, are currently trialling, or under contract with Rio Tinto across its global operations.
Welcome to the programme Rio Tinto Mining Tech Cohort 5.
#MiningTech #NewMining #Innovation #CriticalMinerals #VentureBuilding #DeepTech
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
AI is triggering a trillion-dollar physical infrastructure cycle.
Every dollar of compute eventually becomes demand for physical infrastructure.
The industry is racing to solve power, land, and cooling.
The next constraint is refined metals.
mining.com/rio-tinto-founder…
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
AI is triggering a trillion-dollar physical infrastructure cycle
Every dollar of compute eventually becomes demand for refined metals
Excited to work with @RioTinto & @foundersfactory and have them as investors in @DetermMaterials
lnkd.in/p/grGzEp5G
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
The Goldman guys will figure out the next AI bottleneck after electricity is refined metals
Josh was early to that thesis too
@DetermMaterials
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
From Uranium Refining to Copper Refining
Proud to have Blake as our most recent investor!
@DetermMaterials @generalmatter
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
Great event @Harvard club NYC with @2040WorldX @taufiqzrahim during @UN General Assembly
Ran into @gregorymbernn of @newindustrialco !
@DetermMaterials
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
We need a lot of copper!
<and silver and gold>
@DetermMaterials
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
America’s copper will be produced by @DetermMaterials 🇺🇸
America had 16 copper smelters in 1976. Today it has only two. We still mine a million tonnes of copper a year, but a third of it leaves the country for refining. Last year we imported twice the refined copper we made.
China floods the market with refining capacity, so refining pays almost nothing anywhere else. That's a hard problem to solve. Smelters mostly stay open by selling byproducts, and some only with government support.
@nrg91720 might have found a way around that. His startup, Determinant Materials, says it can skip the smelter by sorting ground-up ore with flowing liquid, in small refineries at the mine. We do the same at Solugen, where we make smaller versions of chemical plants that sit next to our customers.
If Nikhil pulls it off, the US could again own its copper refining.
He explains how in this interview with @jrwolfe:
goingdirect.substack.com/p/7…
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
@DetermMaterials the next @solugen
America had 16 copper smelters in 1976. Today it has only two. We still mine a million tonnes of copper a year, but a third of it leaves the country for refining. Last year we imported twice the refined copper we made.
China floods the market with refining capacity, so refining pays almost nothing anywhere else. That's a hard problem to solve. Smelters mostly stay open by selling byproducts, and some only with government support.
@nrg91720 might have found a way around that. His startup, Determinant Materials, says it can skip the smelter by sorting ground-up ore with flowing liquid, in small refineries at the mine. We do the same at Solugen, where we make smaller versions of chemical plants that sit next to our customers.
If Nikhil pulls it off, the US could again own its copper refining.
He explains how in this interview with @jrwolfe:
goingdirect.substack.com/p/7…
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
America had 16 copper smelters in 1976. Today it has only two. We still mine a million tonnes of copper a year, but a third of it leaves the country for refining. Last year we imported twice the refined copper we made.
China floods the market with refining capacity, so refining pays almost nothing anywhere else. That's a hard problem to solve. Smelters mostly stay open by selling byproducts, and some only with government support.
@nrg91720 might have found a way around that. His startup, Determinant Materials, says it can skip the smelter by sorting ground-up ore with flowing liquid, in small refineries at the mine. We do the same at Solugen, where we make smaller versions of chemical plants that sit next to our customers.
If Nikhil pulls it off, the US could again own its copper refining.
He explains how in this interview with @jrwolfe:
goingdirect.substack.com/p/7…
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
Appreciate it Gaurab!
America had 16 copper smelters in 1976. Today it has only two. We still mine a million tonnes of copper a year, but a third of it leaves the country for refining. Last year we imported twice the refined copper we made.
China floods the market with refining capacity, so refining pays almost nothing anywhere else. That's a hard problem to solve. Smelters mostly stay open by selling byproducts, and some only with government support.
@nrg91720 might have found a way around that. His startup, Determinant Materials, says it can skip the smelter by sorting ground-up ore with flowing liquid, in small refineries at the mine. We do the same at Solugen, where we make smaller versions of chemical plants that sit next to our customers.
If Nikhil pulls it off, the US could again own its copper refining.
He explains how in this interview with @jrwolfe:
goingdirect.substack.com/p/7…
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
Thanks to @2040WorldX & @G42ai for the invitation to join gov’t & business thought leaders at the margin of #UNGA🇺🇳 to discuss the industrial, technological, & defense infrastructure needed to safeguard sovereignty amidst rapid global geopolitical & technological transformation.
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
from my conversation w/ @nrg91720 on bringing metals refining back to the US and building the Last American Metal Refinery. full conversation at the end of 🧵:
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
No domestic metals refining. No re-industrialization.
Sat down with @nrg91720 to chat about the process he’s created to refine metals without smelting or using nasty chemicals. full pod up at Going Direct later this week.
Determinant Materials, Inc. retweeted
Excited for guys like @solcoatech and @DetermMaterials innovating in this space.
🏭
@DetermMaterials was named one of the top 12 deeptech companies by @deepchecksvc, out of 500+ submissions!
Thanks to @JacobJacksonVC and the Deep Checks team for the recognition.
