BHP (ASX, LSE: BHP) has selected its largest intake for the annual Xplor program aimed at supporting companies involved in early stages of mineral exploration.
The Australian miner announced this week that the 2026 cohort will feature 10 companies — the most ever — with a total seed funding of $5 million. These include six early-stage exploration companies and four technology companies, signaling the growing importance of data analytics in the discovery process.
According to BHP, this is a reflection of a “more connected approach to early-stage exploration, where geological insight, data and emerging technologies increasingly intersect, and where collaboration across disciplines is becoming central to how discovery evolves.”
Copper finders
The tech start-ups to receive funding are Australia’s RadiXplore, Canada’s Mineural and Discovery Genomics, and U.S.-based VectOres Science. The first three are developing technologies designed to support the discovery of copper, a mineral that is expected to have an outsize role in the energy transition.
The remaining cohorts include: Canadian uranium miner FrontierX; Australia’s Litchfield Minerals, which is exploring for copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver; and South Africa-based copper-zinc miner Orion Minerals.
Others are Otrera Resources, which has copper projects in South America; Indonesian copper-gold explorer PT GeoFix; and the Utah Geological Survey (USA), which is the state’s primary geoscience organization.
‘Exciting ideas’
“The 2026 cohort reflects how broad and dynamic early-stage discovery has become,” Marley Palin, head of BHP Xplor, said in a press release. “We’re seeing exciting ideas emerge across exploration, data, and technology, often at the same time and in the same places.”
Launched in 2023, the BHP Xplor program has supported 21 companies across its first three cohorts. Each selected participant is eligible to receive $500,000 in equity-free cash, along with access to mentoring and networking with BHP specialists.
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