KoBold Metals Co-Founder and CEO Kurt House

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Jan 14, 2025

Kurt House, co-founder and CEO of KoBold Metals who uses scientific computing and ML to accelerate mineral discovery. He discusses scaling exploration to meet electrification demand. He tells the story of building KoBold, the Zambia copper breakthrough, and how data science, novel hardware, and a multidisciplinary team reshape mining.

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ADVICE

Start When Obsession Overwhelms Doubt

Follow the visceral signal: pursue ideas that occupy your mind constantly and assemble the right partners before launching.
House says entrepreneurs 'know' when to start because obsession overwhelms doubts and drives action.

ANECDOTE

Kobold Raised A Big First Round From Top Investors

Kobold raised $20 million in its first institutional round straight from a16z and Breakthrough Energy Ventures without a prior seed.
House says they went directly to top VC partners because the project required a minimum capital quantum to be meaningful.

INSIGHT

Fusing Geoscience Data And Software Is Kobold's Moat

Integrating geoscientists, data scientists, and software engineers is Kobold's core cultural and technical challenge and likely its biggest moat.
House emphasizes these disciplines have distinct work cultures and merging them is exceptionally hard but high-value.

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2024 was a landmark year for the energy transition. With record-setting investments in climate infrastructure, we saw the price of renewables out-compete just about every electricity source worldwide, we saw advancements in industrial decarbonization (which we’ve featured prominently on this show), and we saw a breakout year for next generation energy storage just to name a few. While momentum is definitely on our side, with the electrification of everything, our industry will face new hurdles in the coming years, including unprecedented demand for critical minerals.

From solar panels, to batteries, to EVs, critical minerals are needed to advance the energy transition. Specifically: copper, lithium, nickel, and cobalt, to name a few. According to our guest today, the amount of newly discovered minerals needed to produce the anticipated number of EVs by midcentury will cost more than $10 trillion dollars.

We’ve been extracting minerals for centuries, so you might assume we have it figured out. However, not only are there some serious ethical and environmental concerns, but mineral exploration has, in some ways, actually gotten worse, slower, and more expensive over time. What if there was a way to make critical mineral exploration drastically more efficient? Our guest today, Kurt House, Co-Founder and CEO of KoBold Metals wants to show the world how scientific computing can turn that idea into a reality.

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