#99 Lithosquare
Finding critical metals with AI
Read time: 5 minutes
Hi, I’m Javi Gascón.
This is Climate Tech Distillery, a newsletter where I talk about one specific climate tech company every week.
Today we’ll distill a company that’s blending AI and geological science to discover the critical metals the energy transition depends on: Lithosquare 🇫🇷
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What Problem Does Lithosquare Tackle❓
The energy transition runs on metals. Copper wires every EV and grid. Lithium goes into every battery. The problem? We're not finding enough of them.
1. Huge Supply Gap: By 2040, the critical metals supply gap could hit $350 billion per year. Lithium demand alone is expected to surge by over 400%. More than 1,000 new deposits must be discovered before 2040.
2. Low Discovery Rates: The easy-to-find deposits are mostly depleted, and discovery rates have plummeted by ~75% in the last decade. Greenfield projects face a 1 in 5,000 chance of commercial success. More money in, fewer finds out.
3. Wasted Geologists: Geologists spend roughly 80% of their time processing and organizing data rather than doing the interpretive work that actually leads to discoveries.
4. Inefficient AI Tools: Traditional exploration AI just pattern-matches to known deposits. You end up only looking for what’s already been found. The next generation of deposits is deeper, in places that have never been mapped.
5. Dangerously Concentrated Supply: China produces 95% of rare earth metals. Western governments are legislating to diversify, but they can't diversify without finding new deposits first.
Product / Service 📦
Lithosquare builds what they call Geology AI: a foundational AI platform that doesn't pattern-match, but models how mineral deposits physically form.
First Principles Approach: Their AI models the physical and chemical reality of how deposits form from first principles, not data pattern matching or statistical anomalies. This lets them search frontier terrain where legacy tools go blind.
Super Fast: The company reports up to a 10x improvement in exploration efficiency, with analysis timelines reduced from months to days. Teams stop drowning in data processing and start spending more time on actual geology.
Full Exploration Workflow: The platform fuses fragmented data (geological maps, geophysical surveys, textual reports, satellite imagery) into a unified framework. It generates targets, sequences field programs, and updates 3D geological scenarios in real time as new drill data arrives.
Geologists in the Loop: Seasoned geoscientists drive the final reasoning. Every target and drill sequence is interrogated by industry experts before capital is deployed. Explainable outputs, not black boxes.
Outcome-Based Model: Lithosquare works alongside exploration and mining companies rather than selling a pure software license, with revenue-sharing agreements tied to exploration success. Skin in the game on both sides.
Market 🌐
The critical minerals market reached $328 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $587 billion by 2032. The bottleneck isn't refining or processing, it's finding the deposits in the first place.
The EU's Critical Raw Materials Act requires 10% of annual mineral consumption to be extracted domestically by 2030. The US has matching policies. All of this creates real budget pressure on mining companies to find more, faster.
Other Key Players
KoBold Metals 🇺🇸: Same thesis, much bigger. $537M raised at a $3B valuation, with partnerships with BHP and Rio Tinto. US-focused, pattern-recognition AI, deep pockets.
Earth AI 🇦🇺: Greenfield-focused, AI-driven prospect detection in underexplored terrain. Earlier stage, narrower geography.
VerAI Discoveries 🇺🇸: Asset-driven model like Lithosquare, they take positions in the deposits they find. Pattern-matching AI, US-based.
Lithosquare's edge: A geological first principles approach instead of pattern matching and being European based.
Founding Story 🦄
Lithosquare was founded in Paris in 2024 by mining engineer Aymeric Préveral-Etcheverry, with Simon Leclair joining as founding COO shortly after. Both had spent years inside exploration companies watching the same bottleneck on every project.
Aymeric became obsessed with the critical minerals supply chain as battery gigafactories grabbed headlines: "The energy transition, digital transition, we won't be able to make them happen if we don't have the metals."
The technical bet: don’t build a pattern recognition tool, build a geological reasoning engine. One finds what’s been found; the other can find what hasn’t.
December 2025: first public partnership. A joint venture with UK mining company Aterian across eight exploration projects covering 2,898 km² in Morocco and Botswana, targeting copper and critical minerals. May 2026: $25M seed round.
The platform currently focuses on copper, rare earths, and lithium, with mining company clients across the US, Europe, Africa, and Latin America.
Top Impact Stats 📈
1. Lithosquare's platform could enable ~140 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent avoided emissions per year by 2040.
2. Up to 10x improvement in exploration efficiency, with analysis timelines reduced from months to days.
3. In just 2 years they have an impressive field program live, $25M in the bank, a US office opening soon, and they’re doubling headcount to 40.
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