Jack Ma-Linked Startup Seals Deal to Hunt for EV Battery Materials in Greenland

A billionaire-backed mineral exploration startup linked to Alibaba founder Jack Ma will partner with a mining firm to hunt for EV battery raw materials in Greenland, as automakers barrel toward an all-electric future as climate concerns mount.

Kobold Metals Co. has signed a joint venture agreement with BlueJay Mining PLC, in which Kobold will hold a 51% stake and BlueJay the remaining 49%, according to a joint statement released Monday.

The deal will see U.S.-based Kobold spend a total of $15 million in two phases by the end of 2024 to explore metals, including nickel, copper, cobalt and platinum, as part of BlueJay’s Disko-Nuussuaq project located on the west coast of Greenland.

Nearly 20% of the spending will be used for geological evaluation while the remainder will be earmarked for initial drilling. The agreement grants London-listed BlueJay the right to take a 2% stake from Kobold to become the venture’s majority shareholder if its partner fails to fulfill its drilling commitments before the end of 2024

“The Disko region has seen the rare convergence of events in earth’s history that could have resulted in forming a world-class battery metal deposit,” said Kobold Metals CEO Kurt House.

Previous studies conducted by BlueJay found that the geology of the Disko and Nuussuaq regions are similar to Russia’s Norilsk region, a major producer of nickel and palladium.

Founded in 2018, Kobold uses artificial intelligence to decide where to buy land, what types of field data to collect and where to drill. One of its principal investors is Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate and technology fund established by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and backed by numerous high-profile tycoons including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Alibaba founder Jack Ma and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.

Other investors include Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and Norwegian state-owned energy giant Equinor.

The tie-up between Kobold and BlueJay comes as global demand for new-energy vehicles — and therefore batteries — has grown rapidly

Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on many automakers’ production capacity, about 3 million new-energy vehicles were registered globally in 2020, a record number and a 41% increase from the previous year, according to a report published in April by the International Energy Agency.

Many automakers have laid out roadmaps to go all-electric, including Geely-owned Volvo, which has announced plans to sell only pure-electric vehicles by 2030 as many governments around the world vow to phase out sales of gasoline-powered cars to reduce carbon emissions.

Contact reporter Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com) and editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com)

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