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EarthLabs (TSXV: SPOT) has agreed to sell its exploration consulting and technology division (also known as ExplorTech) to Australia’s ALS Ltd. (ASX: ALQ) for total cash proceeds of $24 million and the assumption of $6 million in liabilities.
Headquartered in Brisbane, ALS is the world’s largest provider of laboratory testing, inspection, certification and verification solutions, with more than 18,000 employees globally.
The ExplorTech division comprises the EarthLabs’ GoldSpot Discoveries consulting group alongside Ridgeline Exploration Services Inc. and Geotic Inc. Its sale would reduce the company’s R&D costs and G&A expenses by approximately 70% year over year, creating a leaner, autonomous product portfolio of tech driven mineral exploration and financial tools.
Upon closing, EarthLabs will have approximately $53.7 million in cash, securities and equity investment; royalties and royalty options on 21 projects (it is currently the largest royalty holder in Newfoundland); and a product portfolio that includes Resource Quantamental, CEO.CA and DigiGeoData.
EarthLabs, formerly known as GoldSpot Discoveries, was formed in 2016 as a first-of-its-kind quant shop and tech incubator using artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify patterns necessary to fingerprint geophysical, geochemical, lithological and structural traits that correlate to mineralization.
This concept birthed EarthLabs’ financial technology division anchored by Resource Quantamental (RQ), its flagship investment decision model, using algorithms to stake acreage, acquire projects and royalties, and invest in public vehicles to create a portfolio of assets with the greatest reward to risk ratio. The concept also led to the creation of the ExplorTech division, the first of its kind to deploy innovative, geological and geostatistical workflows, both data-driven and knowledge, to examine the entire value exploration chain with a brand-new perspective.
Throughout the years, the company’s consultancy has evolved into an exploration technology industry leader and grew with the acquisitions of Ridgeline Exploration and Geotic.
In October 2021, EarthLabs closed its acquisition of CEO.CA Technologies Ltd., and in February 2022, completed the acquisition of DigiGeoData Inc., reaffirming its core commitment to acquire licensable software products and build robust and recurring revenue streams.
The sale of the ExplorTech division brings the company back to its core strength of incubating technology companies and products – creating, acquiring, managing and monetizing market-leading technology businesses to stimulate upstream mining industry company successes of venture financing and ore discovery, EarthLabs stated.
“Today’s announcement solidifies our commitment to acquire, manage and monetize market-leading technology businesses,” commented Denis Laviolette, executive chairman and president. “We founded the company with the vision for a money ball approach to mining investing and with our recent acquisitions, we have a tremendous opportunity to deploy our model, with new tools and platforms we didn’t have before that will advance our offerings.
“The GoldSpot consultancy was originally formed to finance the development of in-house technologies, make discoveries, grow capital and acquire businesses. The sale of our ExplorTech consulting toolbox will accelerate the construction of our leaner, capital-light and more automatable product licensing portfolio with a significantly larger total addressable market.”
