PALO ALTO, Calif. — Terra AI, an artificial intelligence platform designed to address subsurface uncertainty in mineral and energy development, has announced a $20 million Series A funding round. The investment was led by Khosla Ventures, with strategic participation from BHP Ventures.
Revolutionizing Exploration with AI
Terra AI's patented technology integrates diverse exploration data to generate millions of geological models. This enables teams to evaluate a wide range of potential subsurface scenarios, identify optimal drilling and geophysical approaches, and assess project economics earlier than ever before. The platform goes beyond traditional geological visualization by delivering risk-quantified decision insights, helping explorers make critical decisions across their portfolios—from asset acquisition to resource development acceleration.
Addressing Industry Challenges
“Explorers today face increasing complexities like rising project uncertainty and immense pressure to bring new resources online faster,” said John Mern, CEO of Terra AI. “This investment enables us to move to the next phase of Terra AI’s growth by scaling our generative modeling engine, accelerating enterprise-grade deployments, and advancing the subsurface inference technology the industry needs to meet critical mineral demand.”
New mineral discoveries typically take an average of 17 years to reach production. Terra AI's platform integrates explorers' full datasets to produce geologically realistic 3D models that map assets and uncertainty in minutes, allowing developers to make more informed decisions faster. Its geology reasoning agent works with operators to create precise and optimized exploration plans, reducing time, cost, and environmental disruption.
Expanding Applications
The same technology is now being applied to carbon storage sites, where understanding subsurface uncertainty is equally critical for selecting safe, permanent storage locations.
“The world’s ability to discover and develop critical resources is fundamentally constrained by outdated, fragmented exploration,” said Rajesh Swaminathan, Partner at Khosla Ventures. “Terra AI is defining a new, AI-native exploration approach with their continuously improving 3D Earth model. We believe their technology will dramatically accelerate the development of the critical minerals the world needs, and we’re excited to help them scale this vision globally.”
