Earth ‘X-Ray’ Pioneer Ideon Technologies Closes $1.3M in Seed Funding

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ideon Technologies Inc. has raised $1.3M CAD in seed funding in a heavily oversubscribed round, through a diverse group of global investors and the University of British Columbia’s Seed Fund. Ideon is a world pioneer in cosmic-ray muon tomography, providing x-ray-like imaging to those who explore beneath the Earth’s surface. The company will leverage the new capital to develop its new bore-hole detector, slated for release in 2021.

Ideon is using muon tomography to transform mineral exploration just as x-rays transformed medicine. By integrating proprietary detectors, imaging systems, inversion technologies, and artificial intelligence, the company provides customers with visibility up to 1 km underground. The breakthrough technology will generate significant value for the $12B+ USD global mineral exploration market, while dramatically reducing environmental impact.

“Mineral production needs to increase by nearly 500% over the next 30 years to deploy clean energy technologies like wind, solar, geothermal power, and electrification,” says Ideon CEO Gary Agnew. “With most near-surface deposits already discovered, the mining industry has been forced to search deeper underground using traditional methods. And it’s not working – nearly $200B USD in exploration investments over the past decade yielded a -45% ROI.”

Ideon customers can reduce exploration drilling – and carbon emissions – by 10 times while identifying targets with 95% or higher certainty. “Ideon will literally revolutionize resource exploration,” says UBC Seed Fund President and VC Todd Farrell. “The world has to get smarter, faster, and more responsible in our approach to extraction. It’s great to help translate years of academic research and trials in this area into a company that has the potential to lead the entire market.”

Customer-sponsored field trials have driven strong uptake in the bore-hole detector early access program. The new detector will fit down industry-standard drill-holes, improving geologists’ field-of-view and providing sub-surface certainty. Additional applications include oil & gas (incl. SAG-D), critical infrastructure, and national security, where projects are already underway.

Ideon will also hire several new roles in the Vancouver area.

About Ideon Technologies Inc. (ideon.ai)

Founded in 2013, Ideon Technologies Inc. is a spin-off from TRIUMF (Canada’s national particle accelerator laboratory) and a world pioneer in the application of cosmic-ray muon tomography. Ideon has developed a discovery platform that provides x-ray-like visibility up to 1 km beneath the Earth’s surface.