Most AI tools for exploration are built by engineers who learned geology later. IRIS was built the other way around. That changes what the model sees, and what it finds.
Beyond better drill targets, Mineural was built on a conviction: mineral resources are essential to the future, and the industry that finds them should lead by example.
IRIS sets a new standard for how deposits are found. Rigorous, geology-first, validated in the rock. Built from scratch, not layered on top of existing tools. Geological AI, done right, doesn't just accelerate discovery — it changes what's discoverable.
The first footprint a future mine leaves is the exploration campaign. Sharper targeting means less ground disturbed, fewer field days, fewer helicopter hours. Less impact per discovery.
The metals the world needs are in the ground. Finding them faster, with greater certainty, matters beyond the mine. For the energy transition, for what comes after.
Exploration decisions are made on the ground — in the camp, at the core shack, at the drill. IRIS is built to go there. Not a data-lab exercise. A practical instrument that informs the geologist where it matters most.
The bottleneck in mineral exploration isn’t data. The industry has more data than it knows what to do with. The bottleneck is interpretation. Making sense of all of it at once, without bias. That’s the problem we were built to solve. Not with another layer of ML on top of existing tools. From scratch.
Most of the industry is still skeptical, and for good reason. A wave of AI tools has overpromised and underdelivered. Our answer isn’t louder claims. It’s geological rigor, built by geoscientists, validated in the rock. We look for what others miss.
Managing Director & Co-founder · P.Geo
Exploration geologist with an extensive background across mine sites, brownfield and grassroots exploration. Expert in generative geology. Co-discovered the first lithium occurrences in Greenland. Leads company strategy and business development.
CTO & Co-founder
Architect of IRIS. Deep-learning researcher and AI systems engineer who taught AI at Polytechnique Montréal. Built every layer of the IRIS neural architecture from scratch.
CFO & Co-founder
Software infrastructure engineer behind mission-critical systems for the Paris RER, the Toulouse metro, Munich airport and the Banque de France. Runs IRIS deployment reliability and financial operations.
Co-founder · P.Geo
Exploration geologist with experience across mine sites and grassroots projects, primarily on gold and lithium. Expert in structural geology and generative geology. Co-discovered the first lithium occurrences in Greenland.
Co-founder · P.Geo
Exploration geologist with experience across base metals (Cu, Pb, Zn) and lithium. Expert in geological mapping and resource drilling, from grassroots mapping to advanced-stage projects.
IRIS was invented in September 2021 as a contender for the Frank Arnott Award, an international competition for innovative mineral-exploration methods. Mid-build, we realised the scale of the breakthrough we were making — so we stepped out of the competition to put it to work.
After 16 more months of R&D, Mineural Inc. was founded in January 2023 to bring IRIS to market. We’ve grown on contracts and founder commitment rather than outside capital: first commercial revenue in 2024, selection by BHP Xplor from a global field, and our first mid-tier and major mining clients today.
