A mining company searching for copper and silver in southern Morocco has secured €1m in new funding to help expand its exploration work.
Aterian announced a partnership with French technology company Lithosquare, which will invest €1m by 2026 in a group of mining projects in Morocco and Botswana.
The money will be used to search for new mineral deposits, with the first work focusing on three Moroccan sites: Agdz, Azrar and Tata in the Anti Atlas region.
In exchange for the funding, Lithosquare will receive a 15% stake in the selected projects and a share of future revenues if a mine eventually goes into production.
Aterian said the deal allows it to continue exploration without issuing new shares, helping existing investors keep their current ownership levels.
The partnership also brings artificial intelligence into the search process. Lithosquare uses computer models and machine learning to analyse large amounts of geological data and identify areas that could contain valuable minerals.
At the Agdz project, near Ouarzazate, previous exploration found copper grades of up to 3.47% and silver grades of up to 136 grams per tonne.
The Tata project, southeast of Agadir, has produced surface samples containing up to 7.02% copper. Geologists have identified a mineralised zone stretching more than 32 kilometres across the area.
At the nearby Azrar project, earlier exploration returned copper grades of up to 3.41% and silver grades of up to 56 grams per tonne.
The agreement comes as demand for copper continues to rise because of its use in electric vehicles, power grids and renewable energy projects. Mining companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence to speed up the search for new deposits and lower exploration costs.
