How it works
Funghi degrade the rock.
We collect the metals.
As funghi grow, they naturally produce organic acids. When those acids come into contact with mine tailings, they dissolve the metals locked inside — metals that expensive conventional processes often can’t reach.
We grow our funghi on waste. From Colorado to Kalgoorlie, Toronto to Tennant Creek, Oslo to Orange – Waste material is everywhere, cheap and locally available, and the perfect food for our funghi.
- No cyanide
- No sulphuric acid
- Ambient temperature
- Circular feedstock
Grow
Funghi are cultivated on locally sourced agricultural waste — cheap, abundant, and circular.
Leach
Fungal acids applied to mine tailings. Organic acids dissolve target metals from the rock into liquid.
Recover
Metal-bearing liquid is collected and refined. Clean output. No toxic residues.
Why it matters
A fraction of the cost.
None of the toxins.
Conventional metal recovery plants cost tens of millions of dollars to build and require toxic chemicals like cyanide and sulphuric acid. That price tag puts most mine waste — the world’s largest untapped mineral resource — permanently out of reach.
Myco Metals changes that equation entirely. Our process runs at a fraction of the cost, operates without hazardous reagents, and can be deployed directly at the mine site.
The Economics
Conventional Plant
AUD $25–50M
High capital cost. Toxic reagents. Difficult to permit.
Myco Metals Mycoleaching Plant
AUD $250–500K
Simple. Circular. Operates independently of existing processing infrastructure.
A 100× cost reduction that opens mine waste to operators who had no economically viable option before.
The Long Game
Better funghi through genetics.
Today, we use naturally occurring fungal strains. They work. But the next stage of Myco Metals is to make them work even better — using the same gene-editing tools that have transformed modern medicine.
Leveraging expertise in genetics and biochemistry, Myco Metals engineers fungal strains to recover more metals, from more ore types, with greater efficiency. The result is a proprietary library of high-performance strains that can be deployed and licensed globally.
The investment case
The genetics pathway turns Myco Metals from a service company into a platform company — licensing proprietary engineered strains to mine operators worldwide.
Now — Seed Stage
Wild-type strains
20+ naturally occurring fungal strain complexes identified and tested. Strains selectively trained on client mine waste for optimised mineral recovery.
Series A — 2028
Engineered strains
Engineered fungi recover metals more efficiently than nature alone can achieve.
Series B — 2030
IP licensing platform
Proprietary strain library licensed to mine operators globally. Myco Metals becomes a platform business with recurring IP revenue.
