Mariana Minerals

Critical Minerals · Mining Tech · AI Infrastructure

Funding

Mariana Minerals raises $310M Series B, hits $1.5B valuation for AI mines

China's grip on critical minerals processing is pushing venture capital into building physical mines instead of just funding software.

• Mariana Minerals raised $310 million in Series B funding led by Khosla Ventures, valuing the company at $1.5 billion and bringing its total capital raised to roughly $400 million.
• Founded in 2024 by former Tesla engineers Turner Caldwell, Juan Lozano and Baker Tilney, Mariana builds and operates its own mines and refineries rather than selling software to incumbents, running them on its MarianaOS platform.
• Capital will expand Copper One in Utah, a dormant mine restarted under autonomous operation in four months and ramping toward 50,000 metric tons of refined copper a year, plus Lithium One in Texas, the first GWh-scale plant extracting lithium from oil-and-gas produced water.
• China controls as much as 90% of global critical minerals processing and 92% of rare earth magnet manufacturing, the supply chokehold Mariana's backers are betting against.
• The raise follows an $85 million Series A in 2025 and lands among the top 1% of US energy Series B deals on record, an unusually large early-stage bet for a two-year-old company.
• The round shows AI-era venture capital moving downstream from software into capital-intensive physical infrastructure, wagering that automation can compress decade-long mine timelines just as AI data centers strain copper supply.